Finis
by Darkest Evil
Summary: The Elites now remain in the transformed world, unable to figure out why they have been chosen to stay. The race of pokemon continues, becoming oblivious of the impurities that are brewing within their kind...Championshipping, Originshipping Chappie 10 up
1. Start

'Ello.

Another annoying fic idea -.-; I can think of so many ideas, but I never can think of a title for them. Well I finally settled with Finis, it's Latin for end.

Location, time: Mangaverse sort of, just generally the pokémon world, really, let's say 5 years after Cerise ;) don't you think?  
Pairings: Championshipping (Red x Lance) again, and a wee bit of Originshipping (Wallace x Steven) too.  
Any other notes: Darkie. Hence the pen-name. An idea that was inspired by a story we read in English class called 'Mother in Rebellion' and I found that I could sort of empathize to it.  
Warnings: The above pairings...yeh, dark themes, death, more Lance. (makes mental note to write more about other characters)

Aiie! Nearly forgot;DISCLAIMER: I do not own pokemon. If I did, you would never see Misty again. Oh, wait, we haven't seen Misty for a while. Oh well. I still don't own pokemon. Not mine. Mine not. There.

* * *

She surely was an excellent parent. She was the mother they depended on and their father was a Miracle. The Mother and the Miracle produced the most perfect twins.

Perfect at birth.

One twin was satisfied with how his mother went about, and learnt to respect her. He was peaceful with only argument amongst himself. However...the second twin was rebellious and tried to manipulate his parent. He manipulated her to do right and wrong. Wonderful and stupid. He was the one who imagined and invented, but was ignorant, clumsy and greedy; he never thought ahead. Worst of all, he abused the love of his brother only to result in enslaving him. Also, he was killing his parent, tiring her, draining her of her energy.

It was time to perform the ultimate finale. Though she loved both her sons dearly, only two of the three of them would live on. So she told her peaceful child to escape with her.

The other had to go...

"They cannot see it."

"No."

Two cloaked figures hid in the shadows of an alleyway away from the busy nightlife of the city. One clung onto the other as they watched their fellow race continue with its life, oblivious to the intentions of the earth. The elder of the two tutted, looking into the sky.

"See that flock of Pidgey?" He pointed at the cloud of birds dancing off into the west. "They wouldn't fly in broad daylight; there are sport hunters in the forest. Neither would they travel in that direction. I think the pokémon have been instructed somehow to go to Hoenn."

The young man's partner looked over at him, as if expecting something more to be said.

"Really?"

"That's just what I think. Don't expect any confirmation on that comment."

"Oh, I see." There was a pause as they watched the street again. "How long do you think we have?" he added, solemnly. Several sharp nails dug into his skin suddenly, forcing the blood away. The teen winced.

"Who's 'we'." the young man growled.

"Oh, still not human, are you?" the other person replied, with a pinch of disagreement to this opinion.

"I will never consider or admit myself a member of that foul race. I would sooner name myself a Sudowoodo than name myself human."

The shadowed face opposite him broke into a wide grin. Nothing changed his partner's mind. Never to sway from his will, and never concerned about his own life.

"People admire you, you do know that, hunh?" the teen mentioned.

"They would if they liked me."

"People do like you. I like you."

Had it been anybody else speaking those words and the young man would have countered accusingly with 'stop sucking up to me, because it doesn't work' or just simply 'save those words for your mother'. Instead he pounced.

"We're in public..." the teen gasped, recovering from shock.

"It's dark here, besides, Gyarados Hydro Pumped my bed."

"Ah..."

"And as you say, we haven't got long left."

"What?"

"We're human. And no amount of self-denying can hide that from nature's wrath."

"And won't they..."

"Yes. We both know Humanity's Will. For future races preserve international treasure."

"I still don't understand how us two are part of humanity's treasure."

"Neither do I, really." the young man admitted, brushing a lone strand of hair out of his love's face, then kissing him. "How did anything happen..." he added, whispering the words to the world.

Then tears fell.

* * *

"...the mass congregation of pokémon great and small to the Hoenn region. What is their purpose? What is their reason? The Sootopolis Gym leader, Wallace Gerald Drinkwater reports."

A sweetly smiling, bonnie faced, blue haired man appeared on the screen above a sign stating his name and his location: The Cave of Origin.

"As the viewers can see, behind me there are hoards of pokémon grouping into one giant mass about the region's Cave of Origin. It is currently completely unknown what has encouraged or inspired this migration, but scientists are presently researching this area. So far, we have discovered no natural instinct that would encourage an entire race of beings to react in this way. We should have evidence and facts some day soon."

"Should we be worried?"

"I should think not." Wallace replied. "It's in fact perhaps a critical moment in human discovery. It's surely going to help Science and development in the world we know, and it's also got Sootopolitan residents outside. I don't think anybody had seen a Larvitar before!"

"Thankyou, Wallace."

"Cut."

The news cameramen wheeled their equipment away as Wallace whipped around, completely removing his fake, plastic smile. His face darkened into true knowledge of the situation looming over the world's near future. He approached the Champion nearby, who wore an identical expression of dread.

"You lied again." Steven said, lowly.

"I can't get it out." Wallace muttered and turned to face the man. "Not the entire race of men can handle devastation as well as we Elites..."

"It'll come out at some point. Some day soon." Steven watched the pokémon nearby, who knew somehow that they were safe but filled with tension. "The pokémon know. It's right for them to live on. For centuries humans have used them, now they deserve to have peace. We own the freedom they have lost."

Suddenly there was a slight lurch and both of them slipped on their feet as the earth swayed. They found each other's hands and squeezed tight as the earthquake rocked away beneath them. Rumbling faded away as their eyes caught together...

"Mother Earth." Wallace whispered. "We've hurt you..."

* * *

Ninetales floated across the waters in the center of the great city, assisted by its Crawdaunt friend as it thought about the world. The shore touched its feet and the water pokémon scuttled after it to their destination.

_I still see not why...the Cave of Origin..._ the Crawdaunt began questioningly.

_It's where we began, and why shouldn't birthplace protect your life?_ the Ninetales answered. _There is much going to happen. The race of men is going._

_Gone forever? I do not understand. _

_They've done enough to the environment. Nosing in on it. They just couldn't leave us pokémon be, could they?_

Crawdaunt remembered the swirling waves and claps of lightning at completely the wrong time of year, then visions of nets and boxes taking his family away. His calmness ebbed out of his mind slightly...

_But our trainer...was such a good person..._

_I'm sick of hearing that, newcomer._

Both the pokémon looked up in time to see a Sneasel hop down in front of them and flash its claws angrily.

_I know some of us had good trainers..._ it hissed, _But that's not what we worry about each and every day, is it?_

_What about your trainer? _Ninetales purred.

_My trainer ignored me and gave me mental herbs instead of the nice Devon or Silph brands everyone else gets._ Sneasel replied, _But I've been told that some of you luckily had decent folk caring for you. That's not the point though, you haven't answered my question._

The newcomers looked at each other clueless.

_They're as Good as Goldeen alone. But get them together..._

Ninetales shivered. It was horrible...and Sneasel was right...

_Did you come alone? Only two of you in one party? _Sneasel changed the subject.

_The others refused to come..._

_Yes, _Crawdaunt added_, They were most loyal. But something was telling us not to let our instincts order us to stay._

_The race of men hasn't much time left._ Sneasel sighed, _But we are safe here. We..._

The babble of pokémon voices almost instantly died out as a figure galloped into view. The three who were talking moved out of the way as Suicune trotted into the centre of the mob. Everyone was listening.

_There is no worry! _it bellowed, _We have finished our move. There are no more pokémon willing to move outside the Cave of Origin. We are ready. We, the race of Pokémon, are ready to live on!_

A cry of triumph erupted from the cave into the creeping night.

* * *

"Earthquake, what does it mean?" Kamon suggested.

"I TOLD YOU!" Wallace roared, causing Steven to bury his face in his hands. "THIS IS NOT NEWS, AND I'M NOT REVEALING ANYTHING ABOUT THE END OF HUMANITY!"

"It's a good headline, and this is important!" the teenager said, putting his feet up on the gym leader's desk. "Steven's right. You need to tell the world about what's going to happen. Besides, I don't find it so bad."

"You have an excuse..." Will, Kamon's Elite partner whispered, fiddling with a ring on his finger nervously. "I can see it all...but if I tell you...we'll all go mad..."

Everybody shot concerned looks at each other and then looked back at Will. The young psychic bit his lip and they could all tell that his eyes were hard with wisdom under that mask.

"I'll tell them in my own time..." Wallace gritted and stood up.

"SIT DOWN!" Will screamed. He threw the water trainer back into the chair just as another tremor ran through the building, shaking the entire contents of the room. The light fitting above Wallace fell suddenly and swung eerily on its wire close to his head.

Everyone shivered in silence.

"Wallace..." Steven whispered, "This obviously has something to do with..."

"I know, but I've told you what I'm willing to do." He closed his soft sapphire eyes. "I think it's the wisest thing possible."

"Yeh..." Kamon shrugged and grinned. "And who cares? Humanity was doomed anyway. We would have killed ourselves."

"There are elements of truth in that..." Will said, mysteriously.

"Who told you that?" Steven queried, suspiciously.

"Well, you learn to think like people you know." Kamon explained abstractly.

"Who was it?" Wallace yawned.

Kamon blanched, obviously protective of the information. Will slapped a hand to his forehead. The two of them were saved by the phone that shrieked the tune of the Pokémon song; Steven blushed and snatched it up.

"TALK TO ME!" he yelled, embarrassed. There was a pause on the other end of the line.

"Listen, this is Lance...it's starting..."

"We know that," Steven began as everyone crowded around to listen, "Wait...how do you know about it? It isn't on the news, is it?" Wallace froze.

"No, we felt it, you halfwit."

Steven sighed like a rattle. "In Kanto...as well?"

"They felt it all over. It's not a small thing. This has got to affect the entire earth, Steven..."

"This is the whole earth. And we Elites know exactly what's happening..."

"Actually, no." Lance interrupted. "Red and I aren't up to date on that information. We know that the pokémon have been instructed to move...and are heading towards Hoenn..."

"The Cave of Origin."

Lance gasped in realization. "Of course..."

"So we know more than you do!" Kamon screamed childishly. Steven jumped.

"What the...Kamon? Oh, yes, they let you in because you changed your ways..."

"Don't start on this, Lance..." Kamon sighed wearily.

"You may know why...but do you know exactly _how?_"

Everybody looked at Will. The young psychic shook his head.

"No." he croaked. "Even telling you why I won't explain is too much."

The line crackled as Lance breathed down it. "I've been researching it. It can be considered that the pokémon have a part to play..."

"What?" Wallace shouted, "How could you suggest such a thing? The pokémon aren't suddenly just going to rebel and kill every human on the planet..."

"Wallace..." Kamon whispered hoarsely, "Lance attempted to obliterate the human race 5 years ago...perhaps you should let him talk."

Wallace looked confused to the double meaning, but shut up anyway.

"There is no greater controller of the elements, apart from the Earth, than Pokémon. Water. Fire. Ground. Air. Also Electricity and Ice come in. They have helped to shape the earth, but nobody's ever discovered that because humans have been countering it with their activities."

"Makes sense..." Wallace rubbed his chin.

"Pokémon have those powers. It can be assumed that the tremors we've been feeling have been caused by the pokémon congregated at the Cave of Origin."

"So...you're saying that...the pokémon may be siding with Mother Earth..."

"I'm saying that Mother Earth wants to keep the pokémon, Wallace." Lance said. "W...humans have abused the love of the Earth. There's no going back."

Everybody sat and thought for a few moments and wasted money on Steven's mobile phone, before Wallace stood up with another comment.

"If I were to tell the world exactly what was going on, we would rush to the Cave of Origin as well."

"Wallace, NO!" Steven panicked.

"That's my point! Think about what everybody would do in selfishness. We Elites have to keep it safe between us. It's a bloody good job I haven't told the truth. Because...because this time Nature gets its way. It's the end."

The group of people nodded. There was a crackling of laughter from the other end of the phone again. Steven picked it up.

"Lance, what is it? You did hear that, didn't you?"

"Yes, of course I did...it's just...RED!" The phone crackled again. Everybody blinked.

"Shall...shall we hang up now?" Steven hiccupped.

Red and Lance giggled. Steven hastily pressed the button and threw the device down as if what they were doing was telephonically infectious. Wallace puppy-dog-eyed him.

"No." Steven said, waving his hand.

* * *

End of Chapter1

So? I've had this one milling around in my brain for ages, but only just got it sorted. You like? Interested? Finished reading already? Have suggestions? Have comments? Good! Have flames? Too much, take it back.

The Elite duos are:

Lance and Red: Kanto (I know, I KNOW. The Championshipping got the better of me there. It WILL rule the world.)  
Kamon (Silver) and Will: Johto (No relationship here, but it would be kind of cute. I thought this would be humorous as a duo, but I have changed Kamon's character a bit...)  
Wallace and Steven: Hoenn (I thought I'd try my hand at Originshipping, plus I would have them as a duo before any of the Hoenn Elite Four.)

Chapter two should be up soon, methinks. As I said, I've had too many ideas, that's the problem. My other one's on hold until I'm hyper again. (eats candy)


	2. For now

Chapter 2! Kwee! Thankyou to reviewers: tea, shadowphantomness, Shadow DarknessDragon and The Incarnation Pokémon! XD Tanx to all!

I made a piece of art for this and it's actually O.O WOW. But that's because I edited on Photo-impression and it's for later chapters, so yeah...

See previous chapter for notes and disclaimer. Meh. Lazy.

* * *

It was light...for now...

Red stared into the skylight above him, wondering whether it was the only source in the world. Being one of those people who were considerate to everything and everyone, he thanked Jirachi for comforting him in such dark times, and then looked over beside him. Only crumpled covers.

"Probably poring over his research again..."

There was a clattering sound a few rooms away and Red sat up suddenly. He ran along the corridor to hear furious cursing in the kitchen and peeked around the doorframe. Lance was forcing something large and blue outside.

"Lance...is that...D..."

"OUT! You _stupid_...WHY did you come back? WHY? ALL OF YOU!"

Dragonair slithered out of the door finally and joined the rest of the team, who were looking at their trainer emotionally. They all let out distressed cries, which only resulted in making Lance angrier.

"You lot are just IDIOTS. I explained it to you yesterday, when I sent you off. You worry me SICK. What if something had happened in the night, and you were out there? I'd be happier if you were all safe. Do you understand?"

They nodded reluctantly.

"I'm not going to let you die for me. You know I wouldn't let any pokémon sacrifice their lives for mankind. Get los...no, you know where you're going. Get out of here."

As the dragons slowly took flight again and disappeared off into the infinate sky, their master slid to the foot of the doorframe and sighed audibly. Red materialized out of the hallway.

"I'm glad mine didn't come back..."

Lance shrugged. "It's difficult...I must say..."

Red sat on the floor and leant against his chest. Lance's heart thumped out the rhythm of life, passing by, but still going strong...for now...

"Is it still going?"

Red frowned, knowing exactly what his boyfriend meant. "Yes. Just like normal. Steady and slow." He traced a circle on Lance'schest with a finger, right over his heart.

"It doesn't matter anyway." The Dragon master whispered, "We're going. Going. Gone."

"You're not really assisting either of us when it comes to positively thinking, Lance." Red smirked, "Even though you're just damn straight."

Both of them sat on the cracked tiled kitchen floor as a tangle of limbs, listening to the morning breeze outside and thinking dark thoughts. It was calm...for now...

"Red, stop that, you know I don't like it."

"Sorry." Red stopped twisting Lance's rusty coloured hair into spirals. Still vain, same old vain Lance. That was comforting.

"I'll go and have a shower...then we'd better set off. Will won't let us predict when it'll happen, so we'll just have to keep on going."

Lance wandered off down the hallway. Red watched him go in concern; he still had his hand over his heart. It had been a problem the previous day and now Lance was even more worried about it. Strange though...very strange...there had been no problem since after Cerise, Kamon had said...

A Dragonite cry. The teen went deadly still but then realized it was only Lance's phone. Better answer.

"Speak."

"Wallace here. This Red?"

"Yes it is. What seems to be the problem? There weren't any more quakes in the night..."

"No, but something strange is happening."

"Go on."

"The pokémon at the Cave of Origin have been disrupted...well, no...it looks like they're organizing themselves..."

"Like...into tribes or something?" The sound of running water silenced him slightly and Red dashed into the next room.

"Well, I guess you could call it that."

"Like Lance said..."

"I'm just not sure, Red. Do you think you two could come and see?"

Red pondered as he looked around the room. He spotted the water thermostat and a wicked thought crossed his mind. Wallace interrupted.

"Hello, what do you think?"

"Yeh, sure, we can come..." he muttered as he twiddled the dial.

"Sorry?" Wallace paused. "Ok...I'll take that as a yes then..."

"K...see ya..." Red couldn't help snickering as he hung up. A few seconds later a door slammed open and Lance sprinted along the hallway, leaving a trail of steam.

Red shrugged.

* * *

Lugia was nervous. It had seen this before, surely...

Soaring invisibly over the Hoenn region wasn't helping its tense state, however. The cloud cover was starting to thin as it plummeted back towards Sootopolis, and the humans were becoming suspicious. They weren't that stupid...

There was some kind of fault in the future, Lugia could feel it. Was what Nature was planning...ignorant? Naïve? Underestimated? Even Mother Earth can make mistakes.

Look at humanity...

Jirachi was hovering nearby, and it bowed its head as the great psychic set foot on the ground. It noticed Lugia gaze into the distance.

_Where do the tides of wondering drift in that mind, Lugia?_

It rustled its wings. _Wondering...just irrational worrying about our future...whilst too cowardly to look forth to see..._

Jirachi nodded_. Though Psychic, I am no genius. May I ask?_

_Go on._ Lugia closed its eyes.

_Is Nature evil?_

_It depends on the point of view looking down on it,_ the wise, ancient legendary replied almost immediately, _For if you see joy and worthiness in all races of beings..._

_Then you view it as cruel?_ Jirachi guessed.

_Cruel is not necessarily Evil. Cruelty is sometimes...required for life...and nothing says that Evil is wrong. There is a difference between Good and Evil...and Good and Bad..._

_I always thought Evil was a human creation._ Jirachi offered.

_Perhaps,_ Lugia yawned. _After all...humans have tried to manipulate and control the Earth. Forced the Evil into her, maybe. I've watched as some trainers force Evil into pokémon too..._

Jirachi flinched. _You think that?_

_No. I believe that in some ways, we supposedly all knowing legendary pokémon disrespect humankind in ways we haven't noticed. I believe that they merely made a mistake. They hit a fork in the road. Took the wrong turning._

There was a flash as a pokémon teleported into the area. Mew chuckled shrilly and bounced off Lugia's head.

_Mew mewmew MEW MEW!_

Lugia sighed out a light gust of air which was just enough to buffet the little pink pokémon backwards. Mew shrieked as if it was a game and clapped its paws.

_MEEEW! Mewmew!_

_Then again..._ Lugia began to conclude as Jirachi smiled at the hopelessly giddy creature, _I believe that humanity's scientific discoveries were mean to be, for the necessary genetic development of certain species..._

_Cloning? _Jirachi watched Mew zoom away through a huddled group of protective mother Kangaskhan, which scattered in shock.

_Precisely..._

Completely oblivious...

Both the legendaries paused as Suicune trotted over. It bowed its head to them automatically, panting in exhaustion.

_The plans are sorted..._ it breathed.

_Take a rest, Suicune..._ Lugia said, calmly. _Let Nature take control. You are part of her, she will let you. Be wary, Dedication can take its side with Evil..._ It glanced over at Jirachi with a smirk. Suicune looked bewildered but nodded all the same.

* * *

"Wallace, give them back to me."

"I'm still looking!" Wallace complained, wrenching the binoculars away from Steven. The other two Elites watched them bicker pitifully.

"Quiet, please..." Will said, patiently as he sat completely still and thought, or at least tried to with the riot going on in the background. Kamon sighed.

"I thought we were trying to research pokémon reactions to nature changes..." he growled as he scanned several books on such a topic. "...and you were supposed to be recording visual evidence..." he finished.

Will jumped up suddenly.

"What is it?"

"Red and Lance are coming!" he announced before sitting down again and picking up a book out of Kamon's 'library'.

"Really? Are they?" Steven appeared over a hill holding the binoculars victoriously.

"You wouldn't know..." Will went into his freaky trance. "I saw everything...and if I tell you...we'll all go mad..."

"Oh Will, that's what you say for everything and everyone." Kamon retorted before burying his nose in 'Pokémon Chemistry' again. He tossed it aside. "This is hopeless! Books suck, honestly. Nobody has ever written about this before! We're going to be the first and last people to know."

"Well, we're having more luck, at least..." Steven peered over at the Cave of Origin again.

"Oh, and what is that supposed to mean?"

Everyone looked up to see two figures wandering over the horizon.

"It – was – a – mistake..."

"Tauros-shit, Red. Your finger accidentally went mad and fiddled with the dial on the wall. Whoopsy daisy."

"Ok, it was a split second decision. But I just did it, and I didn't think."

"Thought it was funny?"

"Kinda, and it was...I mean, it was funny enough for me to go and get the..."

"Right, right, let's forget that you tried to find the video camera..."

"I'm sorry! I really am, ok? Just forget about it. I won't do it again..."

"It's not very likely that you'll get a chance, is it?"

"Lance, you're the one who's ALWAYS reminding me that death is just around to corner. That's not cool..."

"What temperature was it in the end?"

"Um...68 degrees..." Red muttered. Everyone else rolled their eyes.

Wallace clapped his hands together. "Right...now that everyone's here..."

"The only thing we've discovered is that the pokémon _are_ organizing themselves, either in preparation for shock or, as Lance predicted, preparation to assist." Steven explained for him. "Oh, and Suicune's apparently in charge, dashing around like a blue arsed Ninjask..."

"Even though it's blue arsed anyway." Wallace added.

Red and Lance blinked. "So...that's all?"

"Pretty much..." Wallace inspected his fingernails.

"Do you know what I think?" Red sat down on a rock. "Nature is cunning. I don't think she wants people to solve all her mysteries, least of all this one."

Everybody nodded simultaneously.

"Should we give up?"

"What's the point of doing it? Even if we did discover the secrets of Mother Earth it would be lost with us, unless..."

A shudder ran contagiously through the group. Kamon looked at the ground, ashamed of bringing the subject up.

"We won't be treated like that. It's impossible and inhumane, that international treasure thing." he said to make up for what he had mentioned.

"But we Elites will fight to the end. No amount of..." Steven was stopped as Wallace slapped a hand over his mouth.

"Shhh..."

"What is it?"

Wallace swung around, scanning the whole area with dread filled cobalt blue. He stopped as they hit the rock Red was sitting on.

"That's not a rock." he blurted. "I just realized..."

Red leaped down onto the grass as if his seat was made of Sulphuric acid. "What is it?"

"Correct me if I'm wrong but...this area is bugged...why wouldn't it be?"

Steven's head snapped up. "Bugged? Whadyoumean, BUGGED? Great Entei, whadowedo?"

"It's those Team Rocket bastards from society!" Lance seethed. "Out of all organizations it would be them to track us down..."

"Team Rocket from society?" Red wailed, kicking the 'rock' vehemently.

"Yes...the world leaders 'bought' Team Rocket and apparently made it into something better...their skills are valuable or something and it's cheaper than keeping all those grunts locked up."

Red snorted. "Insane. Absolutely insane. What's the world coming to?"

Will suddenly clicked his fingers and then everybody was standing in a circle holding hands.

"What's this, the Hokey Kokey?" Kamon spat at him.

The psychic waved frantically to silence them. "Hear that?" he croaked in a monotonous tone, referring to the sound of helicopters in the near distance, "They've tracked us down. They're onto us. They've heard too much. If we don't get out of here now...you know..." Contagious flinching again.

"One problem..." Wallace pointed out, shooting looks at the sky. "How? No po..."

"We don't need pokémon. Will's a psychic and Lance has the Viridian power."

"How do you think we got here?"

Lance turned his surprisingly calm eyes to the psychic. He was used to these situations. "Where to?"

"Our original base, I suppose."

"Ok, Viridian."

"...Saffron!" Will looked confused.

They stared at each other. Lance nodded furiously. Will finally caught on and concentrated.

And with a green flash they were gone.

Giovanni swore loudly out of the window of the aircraft. Gone, just like that.

It was too sudden. Why keep it from the world? Why? Why hadn't they just said before?

"Turn around, we're going back to Kanto." he barked at the pilot. The Executive nervously gave a thumbs up.

"Sir."

Giovanni pondered. It was going to be difficult. For Humanity's will was not the only thing in the world that required the Elites.

The legendary pokémon wanted them too.

* * *

Chapter 2, come and gone. Me hopes my fanfiction is not now cursed, getting Writer's Block after chapter 2...

By the way, I think Mew is a twit. Childish and oblivious of everything, and Mewtwo is a savior of its intelligence. Never really liked Mew, though it's cute.

Well...yawns Time to work on chapter three. A least I PLANNED this one to shoo away Writer's Block.


	3. A Game

Thanks tea, you helped my train of thought, but if I tell you why, we'll all go mad O.O...actually, it would only give everything away...but thanks.

Oh, and the Viridian power thing? We'll see about that, Phantomness... ;) And yes, of course you can host this, more than happy for you to.

And Shadow DarkestDragon, Writer's Block IS human stupidity, MY human stupidity! (is humanly stupid) and...I've said everything to YOU already. Why am I wasting my time writing this? Hmph! (throws Dragon in bin)(backs away from growling Darkness)

Finally, this is for The Incarnation Pokémon: Thank-yoooou...and...is it by any chance the Lance, Wallace and Steven one I heard about somehow? Nyahahaha!

Disclaimer: I don't own pokémon. I don't even own any of this manga, not a one! Isn't that crap? HAHAHA...(several men in white coats use pepper spray)

* * *

The screaming roar of an aircraft stung the ears of the clustered pokémon as it hovered above them and turned, cruising back off into the endless sky. They babbled again as their constant discussion crescendoed once more.

_Stupid humans,_ the Sneasel croaked, alerting the other two pokémon again as the trio huddled in the corner. _Their inventions poison me, and the rest of the Earth. They can't even cope with their own technology. They have destroyed themselves._

_Isn't their destruction an act of Nature? _Ninetales swung her tails slowly.

_But what are we? We are all part of her. Yes, the humans have aggravated our Mother, and she strikes back now._ Sneasel prodded the ground with a twig.

Crawdaunt turned to them with a nod. _Humans are weak against their own punches._ A pearly white wing swished into the air.

_Don't go badmouthing the humans. _Lugia warned gently. The three pokémon looked shocked and bowed. _You're right, we are all part of Mother Earth and she loves her children. But be careful...the pokémon have as much potential as their brother race._

Lugia turned its head back to the meeting. The legendaries stood in a ring, waiting for the sea beast to return to the discussion.

_I still have my doubts. _Latias called, her sibling nodding. _We are, together, a race like humans were. Do you think our dominance over this planet will leave us calm? Human dominance brought with it anger and arrogance and ignorance. I can see it already within pokémon._

The shining eyes around the circle glanced into others.

_Latias may be right, but we have seen that already at least. _Moltres whistled from its perch in a rocky niche. _We will have the ability to restrain it before it grows._

This statement attracted more of a positive response.

_I will not rest until human imperfection is expelled from our race! _Entei growled, its eyes flashing with heat. _It is the bane of this world, and with mankind it shall be banished!_ Lugia slammed its tail against the ground and turned on the dog.

_Entei! Cease your anger! We are oblivious to what we fear, and that's what causes it to occur. Mother Earth is cunning and she challenges us to perfect ourselves._

Everyone looked at the ground in thought. Entei fell back in realization.

_Remember...that to Nature...Life is a Game. Though that seems cruel, it is true. It is necessary. _Jirachi nodded.

Ho-oh gazed at all the legendaries. _We are dismissed._ Lugia approached the phoenix.

_Yes, Life is a Game... _Ho-oh sighed. _The humans have one last turn. But if we are not careful, we will also be on the brink..._

* * *

It was just a bit damp. Wallace waded through a puddle whilst everyone else stared as he came out with an expression of disgust on his face.

"Um...if I'd realized, we really could have gone to Viridian like I'd 'suggested'." Lance said. He received a glare from everyone apart from Red who had glomped onto him like a sticky burr when it had gotten colder.

"I know the hideout was in the sewers, but I don't remember this..." Will said, attempting to help out. "And...I can say there's a path around that puddle."

Wallace paled in embarrassment as everyone else shuffled towards him in the gloom.

"It shouldn't be that far..." Red shivered; completely unknowing that he was strangling Lance.

"Mmm..." Steven hummed, pondering. "That way." He pointed, whilst Will harrumphed.

"Red, let go now."

"Sorry..."

The group struggled on through the leaky tunnels according to Steven's directions and magically managed to locate the porthole door they were trying to find. Kamon fumbled with the rusty wheel that opened it but it was encrusted with some kind of slime. He jumped back.

"Yuck. It's impossible, too slippery."

"Well, we've got to get it open. Try again." Steven coughed and folded his arms. Kamon scowled and rolled up his sleeves.

With a clunk the door swung open. The six of them swarmed in, but gaped to discover something that made their hearts sink.

"Hello." Giovanni smirked, "I won."

There was a slam again and several rather wide grunts framed the doorway. The Elites stared at each other in helplessness.

"Well, well, well." Giovanni stood up and strode over, beginning in a very clichéd manner. "I guess you were right. We do have some qualities, Team Rocket." The grunts saluted at the name. "And since the world of men needs you for knowledge reasons..."

"Spit it out, Gio!" Red snapped.

Red was ignored. "I'm afraid the world has decided your futures as Elites."

"Our future as treasure." Steven snarled, his eyes shaded with a venomous glint. "This will never happen, Giovanni! This is _sick._ It's sick and desperate! We won't allow any person on this Earth to be left to rot as some sort of...piece of...INFORMATION! The race of men is gone and everything we have uncovered will be lost with us. There's no going back on our wrongs and there's nothing we can do."

The Team Rocket leader only smirked again.

"I would never hang onto life like that for humanity!" Lance roared suddenly. He spat at Giovanni's feet; the memory flashed between their eyes as they met.

"You've not changed, I see." Giovanni trilled at him. "And I'm afraid there's nothing any of you can do about your future whilst the world is in infernos around you, watching your fellow race perish. I apologize for the inconvenience. But I'm just the messenger; Humanity's Will is the order..."

* * *

The pokémon did not stir. A Blaziken's golden eyes watched the stillness out of the shadows where it sat, with a clawed hand over the old flesh wound on its leg.

_Battle memories, Flare? _the Umbreon beside him ululated softly.

Flare nodded. _I remember. Took a Slash to it when launching into a Sky Uppercut during a battle challenge. The trainers don't realize that although we stand strong in the short-term, the attacks can cause long-term damage, do they?_

A third pokémon shook her dainty head nearby. She floated over gracefully and sat down like a fakir in the air, her white skirt flowing over the rocks.

_We love our trainers though. We're all part of Nature, so why not be part of each other?_ Gardevoir shrugged.

_It seems so harsh, Telempathy... _Flare whispered, hugging its knees. _There are good people in this world..._

Lunatra blinked slowly and padded away at a trot into the moonlight. He sat back down on the foreign ground that he and his pokémon friends were so unsure of. Any wise creature could see a flaw ahead, but what was it? Such a mystery, like life itself. The psychics were so terrified of it that they couldn't even look ahead to see.

Flare and Telempathy watched the rings on the Umbreon's coat glint with reflected moonlight. Reflected once, then reflected a second time, off a reflected pokémon. Lunatra suddenly slunk off again further away from the others down to the water outside the cave and gazed at itself. Reflected.

_Am I real?_ he moaned, flicking the water with a paw. The second Umbreon below him replied not, only stretched dementedly. A struggled sigh.

The other two pokémon sighed as well, looking down into the soil. They felt for their friend, with his strange history and unfair background. It wasn't his fault that he was who he was. It was only luck that caused their trainer to find him, giving him somebody who understood and treated him with equality.

_Do you still think he thinks he's..._ Flare began.

_Sometimes._ Telempathy finished, closing her eyes. She hummed softly.

Lunatra collapsed to the ground once more. _Some kind of...human invention..._

Nothing disturbed the pokémon in the stillness once more. Before a bellow split the night and the shadowed figures of angered creatures spirited themselves away...

* * *

"Behold my new base, Elites. What other way could I use an abandoned oil rig? Bring it back into action? Ah, yes. You may realize by now that we don't really care, being Team Rocket. Our pokémon are forced to be loyal and serving to us, with their trainers right to the end, as you have assumed will be near..."

Red winced slightly at the fowl words being thrown into their captor's long, ongoing talk. He now stood among the rest of his disheartened peers, in a line flanked by two Rocket Grunts who were both a dramatic contrast to the Elites in shape and size. The teenager tried to turn his attention to something else. Wallace had Steven's hand in his concealed behind his back, Will was eating his lip as was Kamon and Lance was slowly clenching and unclenching his fists with an expression on his face which was most definitely supposed to be read as a threat to shatter every bone in Giovanni's face.

"You see, we heard far too much about your ending theory from your 'hiding place'. Never thought Team Rocket would be on the loose, hmm? So, before we turn you in, let's get some answers out of you."

Kamon and Will snapped back to reality; "Say WHAT!" Giovanni smirked once more.

"When is this due to happen?" he asked.

Steven turned away from the question. "I've told you..." he hissed, "There is absolutely nothing. We're not willing to do anything for you." Wallace shifted nervously and squeezed more blood out of Steven's hand.

"Oh dear...well, that's a shame isn't it? As league representatives..."

"We are not league representatives, we symbolize the Earth's Purity and Treasure..." Red pointed out. "But as we already said to you earlier, we will not allow ourselves to be treated as such."

A definite nod of agreement ensued, causing Giovanni to raise his eyebrows. Kamon's eyes flashed towards the open door. Given the opportunity...

"I see, well..."

Giovanni turned away slightly. Kamon sharpened and collected all his senses...then collapsed into Wallace.

Domino effect equals...

"NOW, DAMMIT!" Kamon yelled and legged it to freedom. Reacting immediately Wallace dragged Steven away from his state of shock after falling into the immense mountain of flesh beside him; the Rocket fell whilst they made their escape after Red and Lance. Just as Giovanni caught on to what had happened.

After roaring at the Grunts they made a clumsy chase.

Four elites skidded around the corner to find Kamon furiously beckoning them into a creaky old lift at the end of the corridor. Will rubbed his forehead.

"Those grunts are coming." he murmured. "They'll go 4th floor."

Kamon stabbed the 12. All of them leaned against the mesh 'walls' of the cage and fell silent, trying not to even breathe loudly in the confined space as the mechanism shuddered into life. Kamon whipped around to Will suddenly.

"Why'd you not see that coming before, back in the sewers?" he growled accusingly.

"Shut the fuck up," Will replied in the usual tone of voice, his expression still exactly the same.

Kamon turned away again, muttering something like 'some Purity you are' under his breath. Everyone else fought back laughter, but retained their collected manner whilst the door clattered open.

"And if you think about it, we've learn something rather important." the psychic added. "They mean it."

"Yeah," Red whispered, "And we mean it too."

The adjacent area was completely deserted. Steven tried to detach Wallace from his arm, who was shivering.

"Wallace..."

Wallace felt a hand on his shoulder and turned his worried orb like eyes to Steven. He sighed.

"What...can we do? It's...impossible..."

"We can't worry about that right now. First, we're getting out of this shithole." Steven tried to reassure him, then stood up and crept out stealthily. Satisfied that it was safe, he beckoned to them.

Muffled footsteps echoing around the empty hallways commenced as they ran. There was nothing there to help them.

"What are we trying to achieve? Do we have ANY idea where we're headed?" Red panted.

"I don't think so...no. Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try."

"KAMON! Stop making an arse out of yourself and keep going!"

"Don't complain! If it weren't for me we'd all still be clamped in between those grunts being bored to death by Giovanni!"

"Try a different level, guys..."

A door slammed, freezing everyone on the spot. Low voices sounded a short distance away and whoever it was set off at a brisk pace...

* * *

The roar screeched off into the night again, but this time, it was the roar of angry pokemon. Blinded by their rage for the act of these people they left the Cave of Origin...

Lunatra watched them go. He knew also that it was time for the pokemon to have it their way. Standing up again, he trotted back into the shadows.

And by the water, there stood an Absol.

* * *

(brings samurai sword bang right on top of Writer's Block) RRRRAAAARGH! EFFING WRITER'S BLOCK! Sorry about that. It was REALLY starting to tick me off.

If this chapter ended a bit abruptly, I dunno...I wrote a bit more, then got writer's block, then cut that bit off as the beginning of chapter 4. So this one's a bit shorter, I think...

Yes, it is. And this has taken me ages because I've been sidetracked, and I'm putting up a shorter chapter because it's taken so long, so please, just yell at me. I demand.

And of course, if you think this is slipping, tell me.


	4. Anger and Pain

(A/N:) Current Music: The Fruits Basket soundtrack, and it's NOT helping me at all. Bah bah bah bah, bah bah, bah bah...

And no, despite how much I'd like to I don't own Pokémon.

Lunatra: Intriguing. Fascinating how you managed to stuff me into the plot...somehow...  
Darkest: You're important in this fanfic.  
Lunatra: I think I see how.  
Darkest: Shut your cakehole then. I'm trying to concentrate.  
Lunatra: I'm trying to intensify the genre.  
Aerocky: BOOM! WAHAHA!  
Lunatra: Get out...you're ruining the atmosphere...

* * *

Giovanni paced his office once. He paced it a second time. The air was silent, as if there was nothing else that was alive, or nothing else that had a soul, on the entire planet. The Team Rocket Leader breathed out heavily and approached his solid oak desk in the corner of the office.

The black clad soldiers by the doorway leaped into the air at the unexpected violent collision of a fist on wood. Giovanni seethed with a glare towards them.

"Well? Are you going to work for your team, or lounge there until the world blows itself up? What the heck do you think you all are?"

"Sir..." one of the Rocket members announced nervously, "Should these Elites truly be taken that seriously? If there was a false alarm...sir?"

Giovanni ignored him and slitted his eyes as he turned to look through a gap in the blinds.

"Of course I don't trust them, you fool." he snarled back. "But I don't trust their 'beloved mother' either."

The Rocket gaped slightly in confusion, but accepted the answer unsurely. Giovanni set off on his monotonous daily stroll again. The previous silence was established in the air once more. All the soldiers stood tensely by the door, still left suspended by their boss' reply. Giovanni suddenly made the next unexpected action by slapping the sensor pad on the nearest wall.

A screeching wail commenced to ring right around the area.

"The alarm. Excellent thinking, boss."

"Shut up. I told you all to make yourselves useful. Get out and bring them back to me!" They hurriedly swarmed out of the door. "Don't you dare aggravate me again! I'm a very patient man!"

* * *

The shadows stretched as their owners' steps approached. The six Elites froze whilst they watched them creep across the ground.

Wallace turned his eyes upwards slightly, breathing in slowly before he acted.

"I'm getting out of here." he muttered in a distant voice. With one stride he began thrashing out at the nearby door, which was obviously completely jammed into its frame.

The footsteps quickened.

"Open...open...please..."

The rest of the group remained in their stunned positions, still watching the shadows reach out to touch them. They appeared to be torn between whether they should attempt to restrain him or try to help.

"There's no other way...please...let us through..."

Will snapped out of his trance and stepped in to help. He turned to the others with an icy look that not even the mask could hide, telling that he could sense something...

"It's definite..." he breathed, "There's something coming."

"We know that, you dolt!" Kamon snapped.

There was a shout from the Rockets who turned the corner to discover the sight, along with the crackle of several radios. All six of the hunted threw themselves against the door in desperation and there was a crack as a component of the lock broke, sending them tumbling into the open space beyond.

Red quickly slammed it shut again and fumbled with the broken lock, twisting the metal to improvise what it once was.

"Nice going, people." Steven said; eying the bodies sprawled hopelessly across the small room. "William, next time offer some more recent news please." he added, gaining a well earned glare from the psychic.

"It's seventeen feet long," Will continued as if nothing else had happened between the time he had finished and started drawling on, "extremely angry, winged, heading towards the corridor outside at a 25 degree angle, and is due to release its fury in the form of a violent collision within the next 20 seconds. I have also successfully calculated that if we don't begin to ascend that ladder within the next 10 seconds," – he pointed to the said ladder leading up through a long chute in the ceiling – "the impact will definitely decapitate us all." He leaned back against the wall, satisfied that he had finished giving away the results of his brain's processes.

Wallace immediately got to his feet, pointing out the fact that he was going to lead the way again. Steven's frustrated expression was wiped away again and he hid the replacement look of sorrow, watching his partner scramble up the intended escape route.

"Steven, let's go!" Kamon hissed into his ear in panic. The now uncommonly serious teenager closed his eyes and climbed after, his heart pounding with the distant sweeping sound of the great legendary beast. He knew what was coming – a pokémon like a time bomb, waiting to hit...a pokémon like a time bomb...

A time bomb's a human machine...

The enormous physical force collided; a creature which soared away, taking half of the floor below with it.

Lugia emitted an unearthly screech which silenced the alarm and the yells of those caught up in its furious attack. The Elites clung onto the loosened ladder for dear life whilst it swung in the gust of wind that arrived as an aftershock. They dragged themselves up to the top, where they watched the situation through a handy window that had been smashed into the wall.

The beast of the sea slowly circled its 'prey' above the churning waters. Further off was a group of pokémon screaming out their angry calls. An eerie sensation of energy being pulled out of the air ran straight through the six of them observing the scene.

A Hyper Beam that was unleashed upon another part of the oil rig deprived them of their balance and they collapsed. Wallace gazed over at the angry surfing pokémon out in the sea.

"No...why do you have to...have to be so violent..." he muttered, "No, why? Don't do it!" He was pushed back again by the weakening shockwaves of a Psychic attack as it ebbed away. Steven helped him to his feet, still wearing the sorrowful expression and the group continued without a word to ether of them.

They all knew better than to ask of each other's dark sides...

The alarm had stopped now its circuit had been destroyed and the entire structure lay in a dusty darkness. Their footsteps clattered along the corridors.

Another doorway opened as a result of their frenzied bashing and the Elites piled into another room...

"Oh dear LUGIA! If you pardon the irony..."

Kamon earned Will's second glare of the hour, despite the fact that his reaction to the scene was perfectly natural. The bodies of several fallen Rockets were scattered around the room.

"Their brains were incinerated by the Psychic attack." was Will's conclusion.

"You think you're so AMAZINGLY clever, don't you?" Kamon replied scathingly. He wandered over and began searching one of the corpses, managing to steal the Rocket's pocket-knife. A Hyper Beam screeched its way through the oil rig again.

"Let's go..."

Lance paused. His eyes had caught onto an object lying by another of the deceased. He snatched it up at a split second decision and slipped it into an inside pocket of his jacket.

"Evil, evil creation..." he cursed.

"Lance, come on!" The words that were screamed almost drowned out underneath another roaring beam of elements which ripped through the structure nearby. Burning fire.

Sprinting footsteps clattered down the next corridor, leaving Ho-oh's war cry behind them with the growing flame.

"You've all done quite well, haven't you?" Giovanni's voice crowed. He stood behind a cloud of dust and a huge fissure in the corridor.

"Oh bloody hell, haven't you died yet?" Kamon rolled his eyes.

"It's lovely to see you all, I'll have you know. What do you say I escort you all out of here?"

"Not a chance..." Steven began to rant again, but Will stopped him.

"I suggest you move." he added.

Giovanni raised an eyebrow, but before he could open his mouth to comment he had disappeared behind – or should it be inside – a dense wall of flame. It thinned out to reveal a very scorched wall, but nothing more.

"Is it safe to teleport without him tagging along after us yet?" Red asked in his pretend naïve way. Lance smirked for the first time in a while.

With a pop they disappeared, leaving the enraged legendaries to finish off the remains of the Rockets and their hideout.

_

* * *

_

_Team Rocket..._ Ninetales pondered,_ Our trainer never had anything to do with Team Rocket._

_Be glad of that then..._ Sneasel answered, closing its eyes. _Cruel, cruel society. Even lately, when they've joined elsewhere to make good use of their skills, there are members who secretly continue their previous activities..._

_Sounds awful._ _How about your trainer?_

Sneasel snapped another twig. _He was involved for a little while. He didn't intend to be. Kidnapped. Even though he was a harsh trainer...and maybe not the best to treat me right...but what he decided to do to make up for his wrongs was enough for me to admire him forever._

They watched the shadows return to the cave from the gloom. The magnificent birds bowed their heads to Celebi with the report of their success. They spoke of the victory over Team Rocket.

_Good..._ Sneasel sighed._ I'm glad my trainer is safe from that one danger now..._

* * *

The ground trembled again, causing the contents of the Elites' hideout to creak and moan. Steven growled as he spilt his coffee.

"Honestly, you think you're out of the predicament and finally able to grab some peace when the Earth starts tossing and turning again. Some life."

Lance sniffed and gazed at the ceiling. "I guess. It'll all be over soon."

"That's not the response I require right now, Lance." he replied.

The rest of the group was staring blankly at different points in the room. Wallace looked distraught and fatigued. He stood up and wandered out of the room. Steven put his head in his hands.

In the adjacent room, Wallace sat and contemplated everything. When was it truly time to tell? Time to tell the world...everything?

_**

* * *

It pains me to see him so...unhappy...**_

**My name's Steven Stone. I am one of the World's Elites, representing Hoenn with my partner Wallace Drinkwater. There's nothing special about me really, as a person in general or an Elite member. Sure, I have a darkened past, but everyone in the Elite group does. That's one of the things that make us Elites.**

**I was the one who chose Wallace as my Elite partner, because we got on so well. I never expected him to go through such pain. And of course, foolish and stupid as I was back then I thought that being someone he can love and be loved by would tie up the loose threads...he loves me and I love him but this job as Elite hurts him so bad...**

**He doesn't show it half the time but today...that's how he shows it; desperation for his survival. He's not himself when it happens. I want to see him happy, and cool about these situations. I hate to see him get worked up and panicked because that's when it happens, that's when his dark side shrouds him again.**

**So I try to reassure him..._it's ok, it's alright..._**

_**We're going to be fine...we'll get out of this together...I care about you and you only until...**_

**But it's not true, I've been so selfish...dragging him into this...then the half of me that's not caring for him is only caring about myself...part of me doesn't want him hurt because it rebounds on me...why am I like that? Why?**

_**In my past, I've done so wrong...**_

**Wallace has helped me so much...to teach me not to hurt those I want to love. He's one of those people that you could never intentionally hurt.**

_**I didn't mean to, but I still did it, it's still my fault he's in such pain...**_

**I've done it before, and that person ran away...and when he told me how he felt, it hit me how cruel I had been...**

_**No, I'm sorry...I've never meant...I can go back, I can try again...**_

**But I couldn't go back...I could only turn around...I could only turn away from what I'd done...and see a new face...a person to take me by the hand...and show me how it's meant to be...a person who wants to care...and wants me to care...those trusting sparkling blue eyes...that I'll eventually break...**

_**I still want to be with you...I want to see you smile like always before...it pains me to see you so...unhappy...**_

_**I still love you...

* * *

**_


	5. Truthfully

(A/N:) Still don't own Pokémon.

So, answering my reviews...

Tip, I'm glad you like it. XD Go Originshippy! Blame Fruits Basket.

And that's it. T-T YAY!

So, here y'all go, chapter 5.

* * *

The air settled down slightly. The waters of the Sootopolis basin rippled with a gentle force from an invisible origin. There was another silence from the nearby cave, pulsing away from the waiting creatures inside. 

They were the only ones who could sense any amount of danger for any living being. No human on the planet could do the same. Pokémon were more in tune with nature than humans. That was truly what separated the two siblings and made them different, and sealed their fates differently.

Sharp eyes brushed over the people by the water. That was their trouble now; not selfishness or cruelty, but ignorance and oblivion. A red iris scratched the darkness in its piercing appearance. The Absol let its white mane flow slightly in the wind and swayed with it as a part of nature before padding off behind the hill silently.

The Disaster pokémon responded to its senses. Lunatra turned its head away from the wind. The interviewers below broadcasted their news program. A great being yawned. It was her move.

Checkmate.

* * *

"Red, you can't move your knight there." 

He re-assessed the move for a moment before putting it back and deciding to sacrifice his last pawn. Lance's bishop swiped it away, just before another tremor gripped the area and trashed their game. Red slumped over the coffee table as if instantly bored.

Steven frantically tried to find a way of getting spilled coffee out of his clothes. He sat down with head in hands once more. Will glanced at him momentarily. He had never seen their steel master so depressed, but even he had the manners not to butt in on anyone's thoughts. For a moment, behind purple curtains of hair the psychic thought he saw those sad eyes flicker over towards Wallace's room.

The water trainer gazed into the mirror. A...glazed mirror? The area appeared to be so smoggy. His reflection frowned back, a straggly haired, dull eyed, pale skinned reflection. Wallace sniffed and collapsed against the glass, realizing that what he saw was actually there.

He...he couldn't just stay and lean against himself...there was something that had to be done...that he had to do...he had to stand up tall and do it...he...

Steven...

"Wallace..."

The previous silence remained just as Wallace slowly appeared. Steven stood motionlessly in the centre of the room, still wearing his sorrowful look...

"Wallace...you're ok?"

"I have to go..." he barely managed to croak.

"What? Not now! I'm worried...what if you..."

"I know...I have to go now...I have to tell them..."

"You can't be so sure! You can't see your condition! I'm worried about you..."

"Don't, please...I have to go...It's my duty _I_ have to carry out..."

"Wallace, it may be so but look at you..."

Wallace planted his foot forward and tried to make his way around his partner. Steven grabbed his shirt and kept his firm grip, causing Wallace to spin around in exaggeration.

His eyes flashed with a reborn anger before he yelled out.

"Stop caring about me and only me! I know your intentions, but you can't go on like this! It's not the way we're supposed to live, Steven!"

Steven loosened his grip and stepped back in shock. Will closed his eyes.

"The same applies to you!" Wallace thrust a shaking finger towards Lance and Red. "I know how we all feel. I know what we want to do. I know how we want to be. But we can't."

Steven watched the only glint in the lifeless eyes before him fall away in the form of a tear.

"And that's my fault...because I am the one...who says that we are Elites..." he added in a whisper.

Wallace slid to the floor and hung his head with a sigh. His long hair hung over his features and shielded his eyes.

"I've gotta go...because now I know it's the end..."

Steven hesitated before making an action to pick Wallace up. Somehow the shadowed figure remained a composition of elegance during his crippled wander to the door nearby. He didn't turn before stepping out barefooted into the drizzling rain and disappearing into the enveloping mist of Sootopolis.

Steven collapsed to his knees, having lost his support. He stared at the place Wallace had stood, as if in disbelief that the man even existed.

"It's me...it's me...I'm the one who...it all winds back around to me..."

Lance narrowed his eyes.

"He knows we both want to care about one another only but...he also knows we can't...and he tells me that...but I know too...because I'm the one who causes it...I don't want to hurt anyone on the planet...but I know that if it's not one...it's everyone..."

"What can we do anyway?" Lance spoke up, attracting everyone's eyes to him. "Who's the one that can't accept it, hmm? Can't you accept the truth? He's gone out to do his bit, and you didn't even listen to his departing words. It's the end. THE END, Steven..."

Steven glared at him. "What are you..."

"Why can't people just accept that? There's nothing we can do now."

"Is there any reason to be so snide?" Steven growled.

The Dragon Master stood up and moved over to him threateningly.

"Have you ever killed a human being, Steven? Have you ever felt the bloodlust churning all around you? Ever felt your senses click to slow-mo whilst you deal the last blow, savouring the moment? Then observing the deed done by you hands, the life taken? Have you ever felt the coursing guilt, which you ignore and replace with the joy of seeping evil, evil seeping like blood? And the rebellion against your instinct...the freedom of allowing anger to overpower mercy...have you ever tasted your own work of death? No..." Lance stepped right up to him. "You haven't lived..."

"What are you?" Steven cried.

Lance slitted his eyes further. "I'm the truth, Steven, I'm only saying what's real. Learn to accept what truly is...learn to accept that he's doing what he has to...before you get hurt."

Steven stared at the carpet, half expecting his gaze to burn a hole in it. Was he the one that was muddled...who had to get it together...truly?

Lance's harsh voice rattled in his ear again. "After all...I learned to accept that you are as much a monster as you think I am now..."

In one second Steven had swung around and socked Lance in the face. His furious eyes watched the Dragon Master tumble backwards into Red's arms with a shout. Fury of memory burned between them momentarily with only Red to break the tension by physically pulling Lance away.

"See? Monster..." Lance snarled, struggling, "Wallace can't be here forever to show you what's right and what's not..."

Steven roared and scrambled to his feet, dashing away towards the open door. Red and Lance watched him sprint away through the enclosing weather.

"Lance...I know..." Red said softly. Lance's eyes flashed one last time.

"We've learned to accept...that it's begun...it's finally begun..."

* * *

A pair of frozen feet sloshed down into the mud, alerting the attention of those nearby. The Elite hung his head again, letting sodden blue strands of hair shield his clouded eyes completely. 

Raising his dripping head to face them revealed a pained expression on that darkened face...

"Stop..."

The news reporters gasped and gained a sense of worry as they watched Wallace struggle to his feet and drag himself over to them.

"I...I need to do this..."

A young woman holding the microphone stepped towards him in some hope to be of assistance.

"Mr. Wallace, what's happened...have you been attacked?"

Wallace did nothing in reaction except take a few more steps forward through the mud.

"Mr. Wallace! Speak to us!"

"Have to tell them..."

He reached forward with his trembling hands and unexpectedly took the microphone from the person in front of him. The rain ran down over his face whilst he made a gesture for the camera to be turned to him.

"I...I've held this back..."

There was silence from absolutely everyone in the area. Wallace paused in his speech and turned his glassy eyes upwards to the camera. The Absol stood higher up on a rocky crag, still swaying with the wind and taking in any sense of disaster. Its eyes glinted.

"The...the truth is...I lied..."

A second gasp sounded from the group. Through the mist a second limping figure materialized, also hanging his head. He held his hand out towards Wallace desperately.

"But...it's happening...and the Earth has decided that she wins..."

Steven's hair was tousled by the wind where he stood motionlessly, watching the scene. His breath shook with his tangle of emotions, preventing him from moving forward, because this was what Wallace had to do...

"That's why...I've decided to tell...now..."

The steel master's attention was turned to the creature on the cliff face, staring out into nowhere. It jumped slightly at a change...

"That there's nothing more we can do...and..."

The Absol screamed and galloped away in a blur. Steven's eyes widened in panic and turned to Wallace, who opened his mouth to speak his last words to the world.

"I'm...sorry..."

The Absol's predictions came to life just as Wallace's broadcast flickered and died.

* * *

(A/N:) Well, nice cliffhanger at least. (yawns) From the 15th to the 23rd I'll be away skiing (YAY!) so be expecting something any time after my return date. I also really appreciate reviews, doesn't everyone? ;P 

Laters!


	6. Adieu

A/N:Pokémon belongs to 4Kids, Nintendo, Satoshi Tajiri, Chuang yi translations and such. I do not own it.

TIP: Eek, Wallace and Steven aren't in this chapter. I'm so glad you appreciate my writing, I really am, and I hope you enjoy this chapter all the same.  
I'm also grateful you noticed my creepy Lance rant. I love that rant _so _much!

Phantomness: Thanks for your review! Red and Lance make more of an appearance in this chapter...

Darkness: Yay blood. As for Lance...feel sorry for him indeed. There's more to come.  
Oh yeh, what's that _thing _you put about me in your profile? _That's sooo sweet!_ (glomps you) Miss ya!

DRD: Thanks for your reviews, yo. By the way, you don't have to like Originshipping, dear. All shippings are completely optional; heck, you don't _have to _support anything.

Guess the POV ;)

**

* * *

Is it right to deny the truth? That's right. It's happening. People pushed it away, covered it up in the hope that it would disappear. And that's what I despise.**

**They do it with everything. They tried to push us away, literally, to make it seem like we were never here.**

**And _he_ thinks that...just by moving on and trying to get Wallace to help him covers up what happened in the past. And he also lacked belief in his own partners' judgment. What is he? What is anyone?**

**Dust. They're all remains of the selfishness of this Earth. They're gone, disintegrated into dust and...nothing...**

**I wanted to do so much, but I haven't. My life's flashed by with nothing to fill it...have I...wasted my time here? Have I failed?**

**I failed to succeed in my own dreams. They fell away leaving me humiliated and without hope. So I ran away. I turned away from the weakness of my past.**

**I've learned that weakness doesn't fade with time...it's always there to surface at any point. I've always tried to will myself to be strong, in as many ways as possible. It hasn't always worked.**

**Running away didn't work. I still saw that weakness in myself...forever afterwards...**

**Because I knew that by doing that...and that alone...I was avoiding the truth of what I was...**

**And that is now what I ultimately hate...**

**I stand here overlooking the disaster of this world and fate of one race only. Red lingers as an earnest figure by my side. He blinks calmly - yet he wears his slight façade, for I know what it truly is that he feels. His only weakness is fear, whilst weakness is my only fear...**

**Red is so special to me. He hasn't taught me as much as Wallace may have taught Steven...and he may not realize it...but it still means everything to me. Red's shown me that...his love isn't pain...**

**He came to me and caught me when I fell from being struck. The way Steven turned away from me to face Wallace was similar to the way I let Red guide me, somehow...despite the fact that he shattered me...and made me feel so weak...Steven and I both learned something similar...**

**But it was Red who took me by the hand...and showed me how it's meant to be...he's a person who wants to care...and wants me to care...**

**So we both stand here together and watch what was a pending disaster unravel over Viridian city. We left Sootopolis and with that, Wallace and Steven, observing the shocking disaster take its origin there, engulfing life with death.**

**And though I regret to say...it is only the truth...that death often succeeds in its wrath...**

**I watch without worry, but with acceptance. That is one way to be strong. Although through all this...I forget to remember...that I've always pushed away one of the most important truths I hold...**

**That I'm nothing but a foolish, weak, insignificant human.**

* * *

"Lance?"

The Dragon Master finally tore his eyes away from the terrifying scene beneath their cliff at the sound of a voice. That one voice that had followed him for so long, whose owner may be using the last dregs of it until...

Lance decided that it wouldn't bear thinking about and turned to the source. Red currently wore his façade of collected calmness, yet his eyes were closed, shaded from the calamity.

"Lance...in a way, it's kind. Imagine being here and watching our fellow race tear _itself_ to shreds. That would be painful."

He didn't reply, but let the words from Red's gentle voice soak in.

"There's something that worries me though. _Why_ do we stand here and watch? I know you don't agree but...we are one of them...it's selfish for us to exclude ourselves. It's as if we think of ourselves as superior. But we're not; we're just humans like everybody else."

Lance felt a leap in his senses. _How is it that he always says...what I want him to say?_

_Foolish...weak...insignificant...we're far from superior..._

"I don't know, Red." Lance replied shakily. Compared to his partners' tones, the Dragon Master's voice was harsh and soulless, at least how he heard it. How can a kind person such as Red love...a _thing?_ A thing that seems to be barely human, yet is?

"Perhaps..." Red interrupted Lance's train of thoughts with his sudden motion to sit down on the rocks, "Perhaps we're meant to be doing this though. Someone has to bear the pain. Perhaps Fate believes that we are saturated by darkness and are immune to it. Perhaps something out there wants us to survive for their purpose. Perhaps we were just meant to see the very end."

Lance turned to him. The façade still clung on courageously, allowing Red to gaze out at every inch of destruction before him.

"Lance, I'm scared."

His eyes widened slightly. He knew it was alright for people to be afraid. But he didn't know how to react to such a comment. Or did he just think he didn't? Was it all in his imagination that he was inhumane? Was it really true? Was empathy such a difficult value to unearth? It was impossible; he didn't even know what he was anymore.

However, the Dragon Master did know something, that there was an emotion he was reaching for in correspondence to what he saw from the cliff top. Lance let his hair obstruct his face and expression, almost like a façade in itself, whilst answering.

"I'm scared too, Red."

His vision blurred slightly with forced back tears. Yet out of the corner of one eye he caught sight of a swaying life form, moving gradually towards the already devastated city below, bearing the pure intention of doing harm.

* * *

A jet of purple light erupted over Johto to signal another arrival. The current Azalea gym leader viewed the incident through concerned eyes, adjusting them away from the jumping flames that engulfed his beloved forest. Surely...no more evil could be forced upon the scene? Surely...

"No more..." he hissed, "Celebi, why do you allow this to take its toll?"

Bugsy whipped around in fury, throwing his strength against the heavy wooden doors of the Azalea gym. The mysterious shaft of pale, flickering natural light glared upon a single ultra ball lying inside. After snatching it up and turning again, Bugsy was introduced to two looming shadows.

"I knew of your power, even through being a low ranking league member Bugsy," Kamon sneered, "but not of your cruelty..." he added, referring to the device now clutched in the protective gym leader's shuddering hand.

Will nodded.

"What the hell is going on?" the two Elites' opponent spluttered, "What's happening elsewhere? Celebi...Celebi has abandoned her post..." he waved wildly at the weeping forest, "She has failed to protect her home! Her people!"

"What do you think?" Kamon spoke again, impatiently, "Elsewhere has fallen. There isn't only your precious forest in danger. The disaster is centered in Sootopolis, only there is it most intense and only there is the safest place: The Cave of Origin."

Bugsy's eyes widened in his new found fear and he proceeded to stride past the people blocking his path.

"Come on...what?" he retorted when they grabbed hold of him, "The Cave of Origin is the safest place! We have to find our way there!"

"No."

"You're insane!"

Will took hold of one of his arms firmly. "We said no. That safety belongs to the pokémon and the pokémon alone. Mankind just has to accept that he has been separated from his brother and it is time for him to leave."

Will tossed away the arm that had slowly turned from tense to limp in his grasp whilst he spoke. Busgy's expression had morphed into something strangely solemn and understanding.

"Then at least let me stand by my forest until the..." he winced, unable to complete the sentence, "Let me stick by what I lived by."

Kamon fixed his embedding glare deeper into the gym leader's face, before reluctantly stepping aside to allow him out. Bugsy swept past into the smouldering air and headed straight for the forest, letting sparks of flame lash him as he strode forth in his dedicated fashion. Kamon and Will watched him move closer and closer to the blistering heat; closer and closer to something that he once loved as a part of life but was now so hostile.

"To watch them go..." Will began, alerting Kamon's attention, "...one by one..."

Busgy's silhouette shuddered in the scorching air, and there was a flash as the Ultra Ball he held broke open. The gossamer, translucent shape of a Butterfree joined him. Will snorted just as he sensed the pokémon's unusual life waves ebbing weakly away from the fire.

"Cloned. It's a cloned beast."

Bugsy turned back to the sin he had let out into the collapsing world and held out his hand to it.

"I can only just tell; this heat is getting to me..." Will continued, "But it doesn't matter any more; soon, it will decide to leave this life of its own accord..."

The Elites observed Bugsy's blurred gasp as he stretched out further to the escaping Butterfree. Ghostly chirps echoed away with its sinful body into incinerated particles on the wind.

"Imagine being a cloned life. Imagine being brought into the world unnaturally. Imagine being in insult to existence itself. That would be the pain of being a reflection, a copy of what is real. That is the cruelty that mankind brought upon this earth."

Bugsy's reaction of horror was frozen by the disastrous flames that leaped and consumed him. Kamon and Will turned away from just another victim, allowing the shock to be reflected by their desensitized bodies.

Flames stretched into unforgiving shapes towards the darkened sky.

* * *

A Dragonair crashed through the distraught city, unaware of the lives that it and its fellow species were taking in millions. A few more of the beasts threw their heads back in rage and unleashed their deadly Hyper Beams amongst the calamity. Viridian City was dead, before it even hit the ground.

The two very last people clinging onto the cursed lives they were forced into owning sprinted along the cliff top, following the roaring mass of death. Red chased the billowing, mud-splattered cloak that seemed to flow along on its own. Another screaming Hyper Beam drowned Lance's pleading shout towards the one thing that remained, yet was directly in the Dragonairs' upcoming path of destruction.

He groped at the swaying mob in the distance as if trying to pull it back. The dull, smoky image blurred out of vision, his focus concentrated on his blistered, scratched and grass stained hand.

"No...my forest..."

The hand clamped around nothing, forming a fist. From the end of the cliff top, they waited once more for the pokémon to demolish a piece of the world. Except this time, this life did not deserve to burn away.

"To think..." Lance panted, sinking to the sodden ground, "These pokémon...they had this anger all this time...just stored...and to think that at any time...they could have just done this...at _any time..._"

"It's not the same." Red mumbled after a long pause, but in far from silence, "They have been possessed by this anger for so long. That anger was never uncontrolled. Now they may destroy a part of what created them, by harming the forest. That action...I am afraid to say...is the same one as the humans made."

Lance stood up and yanked Red's arm, pulling into a teleport. In a single flash of green light the sense of approaching peril ate away at their insides. The tall figures that edged closer and closer to them, the glare of their white eyes caused the pitiful human Elites to shrink backwards.

The Dragon Master looked up into the crowd of what he irrationally feared, the crowd of pokémon that he once fought beside. They halted with an unearthly screech when he stumbled forward, stretching his hand out again.

"They don't understand what they're doing any more...they're like mercenaries, aliens, showing that they think they don't belong to this earth...that they're too good for it..." he hissed to himself.

Another Hyper Beam shot out of nowhere and hurtled towards the ground; there was a ricocheting boom as it was reflected by an enormous shield of some kind of green plasma. The furious power creating the shield flashed like lightning before dieing away again.

"Viridian...her power..."

A breath of wind tousled their hair. Everything had fallen silent for the godlike empathy of the forest, a representative of life, yet a part of the earth itself. She had shown herself for her own protection, therefore showing that her now only child had crossed the boundaries.

_Or was it because..._

Lance let himself be steered into the trees, his wrist being clutched by the person jogging in front of him.

_...we were just meant to see the very end?_

They scrambled up onto a grass bank, watching once more that the Dragonairs were moving away. So they were here, not knowing what would happen next, not knowing the next step towards sealing their fates. The last thing they expected to hear was a sound of civilization, the whirring blades of an aircraft moving closer and closer, aiming for them.

It was something that they had denied as a truth, something they had pushed away and pretended hadn't existed. The fact that they were indeed considered to be part of Humanity's treasure, and it was intended for them to be stored away as if they were never a part of the world.

* * *

A/N: Fwee. Angstay. Too much? Too little? Do you like? Hate? Are you murderous? Angry? Armed with an M-16 assault rifle? Pissed off? Go ahead, click the button, yo. The review one.

Please tell me if I'm working Angst too hard.

Oh yeh, and as for that first bit, Neochampionshipping is EVIL. That's why Championshipping and Originshipping PWN, and Neochampionshipping sucks. ;P


	7. Canta per me

(A/N:)

Mweh...I put an art up a little while ago but then took the link away. There may be a copy posted in my Deviantart account soon for those who haven't seen it. The link to there is in my profile. Otherwise there's a link in my LJ. And that's my 'homepage'.

Phantomness, I thought that you might not like my Lance x Lugia fanfic. All I can do to help is assure you that Lugia, in that fanfic, is NOT Lance's father...  
So anyway! On with Finis...

TIP: Whoo, nice rant. Sankyuu.  
And yes, Lance is a he-bitch. I love him, yet I hate him. I can't explain why, but that weird hate helps me to write about his ugly side. Tch, there's no point in being a biased writer, especially when there are 5 more personalities to look into.

Darkness: Yes, I'm glad you like Angst. It's lovely, isn't it?

DRD: Yes and...no, you're wrong. Neochampionshipping is SO much better imo. END SARCASM You didn't have to remind me. XD

* * *

It curved its wings up into the sky and glided over the curling smoke. Like a mysterious flute of death it cried out its song. It was fake sorrow that drifted into the air on the notes of mourning.

The bird had the capabilities of giving the lives back that had been taken. From now on it had decided to leave its gift as the phoenix vestigial, for the loyalties to the rest of its race unearthed selfishness in the legendary. This selfishness caused the pokémon to turn away from the mangled corpse of the human race and continue on.

This thought made the bird shudder right up to the tips of its glistening flight feathers. It was reminded by this of something that was expected to perish away. Yet some aspects of this value had failed to...

Far below the hazy sky, two figures lay spread-eagled across the soil and rubble. One of them moved his hand slowly to his face; even though the lopsided, cracked mask still concealed the young man's distraught feature.

Will peered though his fingers, squinting into the sudden sunlight that was blasted into his pale eyes. A few dregs of dull smoke floated like grim clouds across his line of sight. He rolled over onto the palms of his hands and pushed himself into a kneeling position with some difficulty then exhaled the stale breath that remained in his lungs.

Just as the still living organs inside him contracted, the psychic realised that what he had just expelled from his body could have been the last thing he held from the past world. He had collapsed just a few hours before, and woken to find that some kind of extinction, an apocalypse, an act of _genocide_ had taken place. He had known it would happen, but what stood – or lay as is may be – before him now was an alien world. She had started all over again, the one who had caused this...

_We were all just another stage in the continuance of living beings, but we thought we could last forever...she got sick of us..._

Will pulled himself unsteadily to his feet. Out of the corner of his eye he subconsciously and insensitively acknowledged Kamon, who was lying around a foot away.

_What was her purpose of leaving us to watch it all?_

A swooping shadow passed over and curved, its owner having discovering its target. It lowered itself towards them, the Elites that were fated to survive.

* * *

Further across the tattered globe, another two fated lives clung on. One of the bearers stirred slightly, in regaining consciousness he had become aware of the ugly ground that was damaging his back. He pushed the invading strands of tangled hair out of his eyes and opened them slowly.

There was black everywhere.

_Perhaps...this is a cave? The Cave of Origin...the cave with an undying aura of life or...perhaps this is death?_

Wallace unfolded his tense arms and ran his fingers across the dusty floor aimlessly, clutching at handfuls of dirt and rocky fragments. Now in this state of blindness and desperation, the once pristine young man had become oblivious to the fact that he was getting dirt under his fingernails or that his white shirt was completely soiled and would never come completely clean...

Reaching around on the ground behind where he was lying, Wallace's hand came across an object. It was cold to the touch, but as he picked it up he discovered it to be a ring, crafted out of...metal.

"Steven?" The voice sounded contained, as if crying out into a small space. This was followed by a shuffling sound as another being moved. "Steven?" Wallace dropped the ring in his hurry and scrambled around again, hitting something else. Steven caught his wrist and held on tight in the darkness, as if expecting the nonexistent surroundings to be carried away.

All that was audible for the minutes that followed were the shallow breaths of the two within the confined area.

"Steven...it's almost like," Wallace paused momentarily, swallowing hard, "I don't know...a coffin..."

"Wallace, stop it..." his boyfriend warned and gripped the hand tighter. He couldn't believe Wallace was still frightening him like this. It was unintentional, he knew and...this was just what Wallace did. He was the image of the beauty and elegance, he _defined _it. But underneath all that, something was there that could be unearthed when he knew that they were in a helpless situation: something he should forever keep concealed.

_He just...gives in to that helplessness...he tries to accept that it's the...the...but...that's what I have to do, I have to show him that it's not..._

"Wallace, remember what we promised each other when we accepted the role of being Elites..."

"That we'd try to escape from that role. That way we'd live." Wallace attempted.

"We told ourselves that we would help each other out..." Steven continued, still as adamantly, "we would be together all the way through...that...I promised I would protect you Wallace, because I just...dragged you in."

"And we'd live together, get married, then adopt..." Wallace mumbled on in his own conversation.

"I said that I would always reassure you, and promise you that we would get through it all..."

"...Little girls. And I would put them in blue dresses and braid their hair for hours."

_Wallace, stop it._

Steven rubbed his temples and tried to ignore the words. _It's so easy to look on the shadowed side of things. But why does he remember something that will now never be? Why does he remember something that has dropped into the abyss? Why does he remember something that will only make us cry? _

_But...why should I be scared to be reminded? It's true after all: We did promise all that...but I don't want to know any more. It's because _I_ don't want the pain. It's because _I_ can't take our own memories. It's because...there should be no reason. It's because _I_ don't want to live in this world of harsh memories and cursed life._

"Steven, where are we?"

"We're..."

"Where are we?"

"I don't..."

"You don't know." Wallace said.

"I don't understand..."

* * *

Will allowed the blast of air that whistled past the bird he was sitting on to ruffle his hair. Whilst the legendary pokémon carried him over the destructed regions, he gazed down upon them to analyze the incredible event. This action was carried out with a certain degree of sadness in his thoughts and emotions. The psychic's eyes fluttered closed so that he could consult the sight he had absorbed in greater depth.

_It's...catastrophic. I can't deny that. This was approaching. We all knew, but we were all ignorant. Ignorance was in the way we tried to discard the truth. Lance was right there. Knowledge was in the...circle of Elites, just the six of us. Why did we know? Why did we stay? Why were we chosen to be some kind of treasure, historical document even, locked away in an inhumane fashion to be part of Humanity's treasure?_

_Was the entire world against us? Afraid of us? Who hated us – Mother Earth? Are we merely victims, weakness, rather than the strength that fits our title...Elites?_

**_You think deeply._**

Will opened his eyes at this comment exterior to his own mind. Ho-oh continued to concentrate on its flight, curving around to face over the dull ocean that stretched away from the smouldering remains of Pallet and Viridian.

_Ho-oh; my apologies..._

**_I was merely intrigued by your wonderings. Please do not apologize. Being sibling to Lugia gives me a hint of its own psychic power, and it the limited ability to wield flame._**

_I was just wondering about...reasons for the Earth's actions..._

**_None of us fully understand. True, she empathises with the race that connects with her and respects her the most, but no pokémon seemed to ask for her actions to occur. However, they agreed and abided by her decisions. If there is a rationally thinking mind that resides inside the mother...there is no fully understandable reason for this destruction._**

_So...do the legendaries consider this to be a wise choice? _Will interrogated further, as politely as he could. He continued to watch the ripple of the remarkably calm ocean far below, admiring the sudden peace of the world as far as his considerably emotionless mind would carry such a thought.

**_Again, there is no confirmation. Why not? If a mind exists in the Earth, there is no necessity of a heart, is there? She does not feel the pain of the children. She is harsh. She is evil. Though nothing is wrong in those two qualities, it could have been her grave mistake to act with them. There is evidence of a similar problem that your race suffered within pokémon now. Heartlessness...lack of observation...impulse...dare I say, selfishness..._**

The bird's feathers shuddered again from the tremble within its body. Ho-oh soared away from the yawning waters and stroked the breeze with its wings again just as the land began to roll out beneath them again like a carpet of horrors.

_There may be a mistake...made by even this powerful entity? But, everyone and everything makes mistakes._

It was possible and it was deadly to the Mother herself. The workings of life – though unintentional – were so unforgiving. Nothing can really control life, not even its own mother.

Kamon sat on the other side of the bird's back, also 'admiring' the terrifying view. He couldn't even tell whether he had accepted the actions of the Mother Earth because of the overwhelming concept of the entire event. Similar questions as Will's were tossing and turning in his brain.

_Little bitch..._ the red-haired teenager cursed. He curled himself up tight and clenched his muscles at the biting wind that slapped him, _why am I being dragged along into all of your crap? Anyone's?_ He watched a swirling storm of ash over Mount Chimney, settling like a blanket to bury the area...

...Just like he experienced the cube around his life closing in, engulfing him.

Ho-oh swooped down lower, clipping the charred peak of Fortree and touching down in the clear, and again, strangely peaceful area beyond. Wind whispered playfully through the otherwise undisturbed grass in the innocence of nature. Kamon cautiously climbed down off the legendary's back, respectable even in his sulky state. Will teleported suddenly in a glow of purple and instantly stood in the tall grass.

It was then noticeable that they were in the centre of a large circle that consisted of legendary pokémon. Most of them bowed their heads towards Ho-oh's presence. Lugia's thoughtful gaze stared blankly ahead in a concerned but accomplished manner. Yes, it seemed that everything intended had been completed. Their race was safe and the pain had been caused. But there was a continuance of transformation that the Beast of the Sea did not like...

It was reminded of something that was expected to perish away...

**_William...Kamon..._** Lugia spoke, pushing the thoughts away. This was cowardice, to make its abilities vestigial and be afraid to view the problem that troubled the world in the future.

The two Elites looked around and bowed.

**_There are many unanswered questions about the recent actions taken. You are your race's purity and its last representatives, its last hopes. Your perseverance is required to find solutions and try to see what this problem; this loose stitching is in the remaining life on this poor planet._**

Lugia then looked up from the human faces only for its attention to be drawn towards the east. A cloud loomed over the monstrosity of a mountain that remained there, releasing a few fierce streaks of lightning. Mount Pyre was a resting place for spirits, especially one large spirit that consisted of its collective memorabilia, including the intention of an inhumane action of storing away humanity's last purity.

_**We know that our Dragon Master is still with us.**_

* * *

(A/N:) It's 1:29 a.m. on the 29th of September. And I've FINALLY completed the seventh chapter of Finis. Phew.

**_Canta per me_ **was the title of the track I was listening to when I began this chapter. That was, like, ages back. XD But it does have some significance to the chapter. Well, if you're a lingo nut you can probably guess. Yes, it is 'He.She.It sings for me' in Italian. Well, Ho-oh singing for the world...

And I think an MSN conversation saved me during that bit with Wallace and Steven. Those ideas came from TIP when we were randomly talking. Tried not to make it seem soppy. Instead it was just Wallace angsting over what a good mum he could have been whilst ignoring Steven's words. Poor Wallace. T-T

Built Will and Kamon's characters up a little more now. Will is kind of emotionless and mysterious, but he's courageous. However, like all psychics in this fic he's scared to peek at the future. Also Kamon's angsting over himself. He's still just a stroppy, rebellious teenager as a priority even within the extreme changes. Stupid boy.

Well, hope there's another chapter soon, folks. I like reviews, believe it or not. Please.

Lance and Red take over the next chapter, yay.


	8. Trapped and Freed I

WARNING: This chapter contains a rather gory and macabre scene at the end. It's also sad. T-T But hey, that doesn't really need a warning.  
And it contains a rather significant event in Finis.  
And it's so long that I split it into two parts. Two chapters. Zah.

Phantomness: Hurrah!  
Ah, that's good to hear. But now I _do _think that Lugia was too much like Ayame Sohma from Furuba. (sweatdrop)  
Chapter's not very shippy, not too convenient in this situation. I'm putting it in a little bit later on, ok? I'm sorry...I promise...but it's still Red and Lance in this chapter. T-T I'm sorry...and I mean, a huge overdose of Lance and Red.  
Steven; stupid and insensitive...I can't deny that he's a bit stupid, but he focuses on Wallace's wellbeing to some extent. All the characters have their cons though. Heck, Lance is a first prize lifeless shell. (wink)

Darkness: Red's fine, he's with Lance. Red's my favourite character in this right now, excuse me. XD

TIP: Well, we did. ;P And I was extremely stuck, so I remembered that and just used it.

Some of the ideas in this chapter are recycled from an old fanfic I wrote yonks ago, nobody else's fanfic ideas were taken. Ehehe. It was so ugly and non-descriptive that I grabbed it again and made it HORRIFIC. :D

* * *

- Part One -

The Earth began to roar, spilling out her fury in the force of the storm. Her anger was built up through the expertise and control of another being. This being concealed the flailing entity named Anger within himself whilst allowing the elements to express it.

The sound of thunder rumbled through the solid rock wall, but from experience the Dragon Master's partner tried to ignore the crashes and remained curled up on the ground. He was attempting to figure out why they were here within this locked chamber at all. Slowly seeping back into his mind were the memories of the whirring helicopter blades, the feeble endeavor to escape, their own yells and screams, the explosions...

The young teenager curled up tighter and rocked back and forwards, forcing himself into the constricting cube again; where he could be separated from all others and where he could scream out as much as he liked...

Another lightning bolt shattered through the atmosphere. Lance still sat on the ground, his face blank and papery white.

"Lance, if you continue with this the world will never see sun again." Red whispered in one of the breaks between the rolling of thunder.

Lance blinked his amber eyes once as a supposed 'reply'. He then stood up calmly, much to the relief of the other person present. Then again, what was the likeliness of other people being present now?

"Lance, you don't look too good..."

"Come on, let's investigate this...place," was once again his supposed 'reply'.

Red reluctantly followed. Lance seemed vaguely out of character, there was something going on within him. It wasn't visible, but that didn't make it unidentifiable. It was unnecessary to fuss on about such a thing though, so Red tore his attention away from his worries and concentrated on surroundings.

They were cautiously stepping through what seemed to be an abused graveyard. The area had been destroyed intentionally, it appeared. The slabs of roughly crafted slate lay strewn like the victims of a mass-death across the tiled floor. The tiles themselves had been disturbed or perhaps trampled, scattered about in fragments and battered by an unexpected invasion.

Beyond this scene was a crude archway, eroded away by man's hands. Lance and Red stood in the gaping space; Red gazing around the area beyond, Lance glaring. It was a greater cavern that met their eyes with more archways that led to sub-chambers.

The only sound that broke the cold silence was pattering of soft rain, a symbol of the Dragon Master's calmed mood.

"Is it safe?" Red asked for the single purpose of breaking the silence of voices.

"What _is_?"

Retaliation was not advisable at this comment. Momentarily the clouds outside poured out the rain more densely. Somewhere beside the younger teenager, a heart pounded.

Lance moved forward again into the next chamber, stepping slowly across the cracked tiles. From where he followed behind, Red watched him raise a hand up to his chest again. Concern for the problem within his heart was showing through Lance's movements once more; something that his partner frowned upon in worry. The first adjacent room was entered inquisitively.

"A...plaque..."

Sure enough, there lay one large marble slab in the centre of the room, embedded into the floor, again having disturbed the worn old tiling. It was the same kind of plaque that would be placed there in memory of something or in recognition of somebody.

"Purities of...mankind..." Lance read aloud in an unnaturally timid manner. He still held his hand up to his chest.

Below the title that Lance had just read were six capitalised words engraved into the stone.

INNOCENCE

HATE

GRACE

SINCERITY

MIND

YOUTH

"Innocence...Hate..." Red recognized them, but how? Were they alike something they had experienced? Were they qualities; even – as this stated – purities of mankind?

Were they words that connected with him and Lance? _Am I the representative of Innocence and he the representative of Hate? _

It was harsh to think that Lance being Hate was the case, but it seemed so relevant.

"Grace and Sincerity; Mind and Youth. They have connections to all of 'Humanity's Treasure'." Lance said calmly, even though hints of disgust were still apparent in his tone.

Red sadly watched him instinctively clutch at his heart again and put on a pained expression. It was almost as if he didn't notice that there was something wrong.

Across the larger room and in the second adjacent chamber they entered was an extremely large database consisting shelves completely coating the walls.

"Do you think this is all just paperwork?"

"I suppose so. It's easiest to preserve, I believe. For as long as paperwork _can_ preserve."

"How did they do all this...?"

Red gazed around whilst Lance began to physically hunt through the stacks and rows of papers, although he was one pushing aside every one of them.

"This all looks like something that _Steven_ would have been interested in..." Lance whispered to himself whilst roughly pushing away more of the folders and bundles.

Red turned away from the destruction and began to browse a line of shelves. His fingers flicked past the documents one by one and he began to read the many faded labels that were peeling away. _The Stone Family, Complete Anthologies of Ecruteak Legend, Dragon Mastery Success throughout the ages..._it was almost as if the entire documented history of the world had been shelved here randomly, in no particular order.

There was a clatter and a hard slap behind him and he turned to see that Lance had managed to tip about a dozen folders off one of the higher shelves. Red sighed, the worried feeling within him clutching harder as time went by.

Lance stood there hopelessly, like the twisted memory of a lost child.

"You silly old thing..." Red's joking side chimed nervously through the tightly enveloping worry. It tried to; but as the boy knelt down to help clear up the mess, the sight of Lance's again oblivious frenzy stabbed through him again. It still tugged at his struggling heart, but he knew that something..._something_ was troubling Lance's more.

_This is becoming unbearable..._

Red's hand fell upon a folder that had another old, peeling label. It had the words 'Viridian Power' scrawled upon it, obviously being gnawed away more and more by time. Lance watched wearily whilst he opened it, revealing what appeared to be a photocopy of an ancient-looking document tucked inside.

"'Ancient power of Lady Viridian - passed on to fauna over granted generations – allows unique abilities of empathy, telepathy and healing.' That's how it's described," the inquisitive teenager began. Lance fiddled with a piece of grit.

"The power of the Viridian forest or of the Viridian Lady – the name that the area is spiritually known by – has been possessed by certain fauna born under her protection since the date her first saplings appeared. The history of granted beings has not yet been recorded, yet in modern times it has been noticed that uncommon glitches within some human beings born within the forest depths has resulted in them inheriting the granted power...There is yet lack of research into this abnormality because of scientists' skeptical views of the power's true existence. It is currently unknown whether individual human beings are capable of containing the Viridian Power and there is worry of weakness to those who possess it in later life..."

"Dimensional Breakthroughs?" Lance's voice interrupted.

Red - still partially drawn to the Viridian Power document because of his increasing worry - reluctantly turned to what had just picked up. Lance swept away some of the dust coating that hung on to the crumpled old cardboard and examined it from all angles, as if there was something other than the label on the cover. He then stood up, tucked his find under his arm and walked away without a word. Red also stood up shortly after. He left the sea of mysterious papers and – similar to a small kitten – followed his worry.

The next room across the hall that they entered was similar size to both the others, but appeared a bit too spacey to house only a few squat pedestals.

"Humanly discovered objects?"

"Some of them look like they're manmade...others just look like they've been dug up by men." Lance picked up the moonstone that lay on the nearest pedestal and turned it over in his hands.

On top of the other neatly placed platforms around the chamber were many other items. Close to the moonstone pedestal was a glittering pearly feather and another flaming red one, each curled around each other.

There was a sudden crash and Red tore his eyes from the feathers in time to see a circular device clatter into the shadowed corner. Lance stalked away from the surface on which the Gym Badge Energy Amplifier had been.

"Lance..." He had stopped again to glare at the next object.

"Pathetic..." he hissed to it, ignoring Red's tone, "this object here is a shard, a small patch of what...'we' have claimed to be treasure. But it's also _disgusting_. It's the coldest, darkest prison that we could ever force upon our sibling: a...Master Ball...it's as simple as that but it's so incredible...it's..."

"Lance, I know...let's have a look somewhere else."

With that, Lance's arm was grabbed and eased away from the room that was angering him.

_He's still trying to help me. This is what he lives for...isn't it? He tries to live to see others with smiling faces. But I stand here, paining him with my gash-like frown. This is why I am so unworthy..._

_Now that only I cling on with him...a lifeless shell that sits stubbornly in its pool of darkness...he may have some sort of despair._

_But I cannot tell because he still wears that pretty little façade..._

_He has only one person in this world that he can attempt to lighten, a person he loves for reasons unapparent. Red, why do you love me?_

_Why do you love...an emotionless, disgusting object that is kept as a treasure...but is actually the coldest, darkest prison you will ever have...?_

- End of Part One –

* * *


	9. Trapped and Freed II

- Part Two -

"Lance..."

_He's now holding my hand in a tight binding that is only just visible in this darkened prison that we have been forced into. He turns to face me and...a mirror? Is what I faintly see in his face a mirror of what I am showing? Why does he look so worried, scared? _

"Look through there."

And he pointed towards the last archway which led to the one room that they had yet to walk into. Lance pulled away and began to walk towards it.

"Aren't you coming?" Red's presence still lingered a little way away, exactly where he had left it. He shook his head stubbornly and just like that he was anchored where he stood.

"I'll wait here for a while." he replied, nervously, confusing Lance. Then he examined the wall.

That same worry that had shrouded Red was beginning to seep into Lance's veins, even in his oblivion. It was beginning to rebound.

The next room met Lance's eyes with a momentarily dumbfounding effect, then a silent, stomach lurching horror; for the contents of it were surprising, although not completely contrasting to the other chambers. There was a small collection of yet more pedestals except they were...tanks.

"It looks like a laboratory," Lance stepped in further, and more horror gushed over him. "So this is a treasure too...research on Pokémon?" he hissed...

A scuffling sound alerted Lance's attention again; he turned just in time to notice the boy take a step back. The unaware Dragon Master sadly acknowledged the reason for the behavior he saw.

_Something draining my emotion...so that I can't see others'...I can't believe I couldn't see his reason. It's fear._

Red's eyes shone faintly from their distance, the emotion that Lance had only just recognized strangely obvious in their glow.

_He was afraid of my anger so stayed away...what have I done?_

_I have to now aid him to embrace that fear and...swallow it up._

_Perhaps this entire world has broken him..._

_Y...you can come now..._

_The anger has gone...but the pain remains.._

_The pain, it's...within me, but it's not...what is this curse? What's happening to me?_

The two of them entered the room again, browsing just as they had done with the others. Around the circumference of the roughly dug out chamber were those cold, lifeless tanks with what looked like cold, lifeless contents.

The two of them cringed in their disgust and loathing, vehement thoughts wheeling around in their heads. They gradually moved about the area, making their manners a threat to the absent presence. Red paused when his eyes caught onto something in particular.

It was something that appeared to have told him to stop. There was a lurch as his eyes brushed past it, and instinct brought him to stop. Instinct, or was it some form of destiny...fate? No, that didn't bear thinking about and was too farfetched, but this object – for a reason he no longer questioned – was drawing him in.

"Lance? What's this?"

Lance blinked slowly at the sight of Red's return to his side. What had he brought? One of his common little interrogations again...and he pointed at it.

"That's a Porygon. Isn't it?"

This time both of them peered through the glass at what looked oddly like a ball of crystals, suspended in midair – or in whatever the unearthly atmosphere within the casing was.

"I just...I couldn't tell what it was. Look at it. It's just in embryo, by the looks of it, wrapped in a casing."

The Porygon embryo twitched slightly.

"Do you think it's still alive? They must have dumped it down here for some reason. Perhaps it's important?"

"Have you seen anything in here that's important, even slightly, yet?" Lance replied.

Red's eyes automatically fell upon the folder still tucked safely under his arm, but returned them to the embryo without argument.

"It has to be here for some reason. Perhaps they bred it for something?"

There was a slumping sound as Lance sunk down the wall and sat there, motionless as if he were an abandoned rag-doll. His expression continued to be strained, though he looked fatigued. It seemed as though they were stopping here.

Red's pity drove him to also sit down, but those exact same emotions continued to pound at his mind. For a split second his stomach lurched, nauseating him over the strange reminder of death that Lance had portrayed when he collapsed against the wall, a weakness that was somehow uncharacteristic of him. His mind angered him because he thought of this, angered by the force of nature that told him that such a thing was sickening, angered by the force of nature that told Lance that his heart was troubled...

His worried thoughts were temporarily cast away when the sound of Lance rustling papers caught his attention. The Dragon Master sighed and leafed through the contents of the folder he had purloined from the database room. It mostly looked like brief or abstract notes, sketches and equations that neither of them could interpret.

Red shuffled through it all without catching much of its meaning, watching a variety of words, numbers and rough diagrams flash past his eyes. Lance was only staring at one sheet in particular, decorated with a faded, pencil lined drawing that barely showed upon the stained, brittle paper.

"They all look like crystals that have been attracted to each other." He looked up. "That Porygon: there are details about it in this folder. It looks as though...it's been genetically modified to have some sort of quality...that prevents dimension breakthroughs? What the hell is that supposed to mean?" He dropped the paper half-heartedly.

"Well...it had to be here for some reason," Red replied, watching the drawing float down to rest on the tiles. "And it's this one but...what are these Dimension Breakthroughs?"

"I can only guess that it's got something to do with stopping vermin from entering this earth; a bit like something to stop viruses from entering a computer system."

They were silent whilst they watched the tank above them, with its indescribably alien atmosphere and mysterious contents - tiny, insignificant, but oh so powerful. Something about that one object was incredibly foreboding; it omitted such a creeping, sinister feel that it dominated the entire area. The sense of fate that Red had tried to disagree with earlier was steadily becoming more and more apparent and – with unwilling courage – agreed that, at that point, it had been very wrong to deny that truth...

That it was fate...but what kind of fate?

The silence, the kind of silence that would be at the end of all things followed. Lance still sat sprawled on the ground, gazing into nowhere and with one hand positioned over his heart.

**_It's impossible to stay happy throughout your entire life, but this is...impossible. To suffer enough pain that it begins to worry other people so much that it's unhealthy..._**

**_No...but I can't see if the pain is true or not because...because of that façade..._**

_**A façade that's cruel. A façade that should not exist, please, for the love of Moltres almighty...A façade that I vaguely think I've met before, in a different shape, on a different person...**_

_**Otherwise...like I saw once before...if I have no reason for this lightened philosophy of hope, the abyss will crush me.**_

"**Red? Hi, Red..."**

**You just said that in your nervous voice to act, you did, to act over the fact that you detested my existence. You were charred and twisted up on the inside, slashing the blame into me because you didn't really care.**

"**I'm going out, would you like to come?"**

**Don't do this to me. _Why did you do this to me...?_**

**But I still smiled up at you, unaware...naive towards that lying façade that you _foully _used to cover up your despising nature...**

**I still saw you as my..._'mommy'_. I still viewed you as a dictionary definition of such a thing. Now I can't even see you as if you were a person, you were a _thing_ now I think back on it. You were a monster, a _monster_ had grown inside you, for reasons I was again oblivious of...**

**Even in that unbearable, darkened environment that I dwelled in as a child, I remained as something similar to the sun's light. _Somehow..._**

**Now I see that it irritated you. Now I do. Why were you the one person in this world who tried to plunge me into hopelessness whilst I was somebody who tried to exist to see...**

**Smiling faces...**

**_But I don't want to see this smiling face. There's something broken in this face when you smile, it doesn't seem right._**

**The face consumed my sight – the face that was strained, forced, tortured into something attempting to be warm but was actually iced up with torn emotion. The owner of the pain held out her arms and wrapped me in them. Even though I still believed that this frozen warmth was real, I still recoiled. But still, I thought her mask to be real...I think back on it and...it just seems like it was a Childhood Fantasy.**

"**_Don't smile at me, Red...it does _nothing_..."_**

**_Why? Why could you not just smile? It changes the world; it changes _your_ world..._**

**She stood, leaving me stranded. After she swept out of the room, out of the area, out of the house...out of my life...I felt the smile drain away. Even if it was a smile that could never have been mirrored in that person's face, it was for her. I didn't want her to give up the way she just gave up. I didn't want her to give up on _smiling _at somebody, just once, and feeling the smile, meaning it. I didn't want her to give up on the universal struggle.**

**When they came around later, I was terrified. There was nobody around until they came in and found me there, sitting exactly where I had been when she glided away like gossamer so easily, with the same expression on my face, except it wasn't smiling.**

**I never understood...for so, so long...what had happened. I was so ignorant...in some ways I thought that she had been right; you can't smile the whole time. But you shouldn't give up the entire game, the entire fight just because you cannot smile with honesty.**

**They told me that they had found her. They had found her but she wasn't there. I didn't understand. They had brought her back, but she had gone. Even though I didn't understand what she had done to herself back then, I still knew, with my engulfing naivety that I had to find somebody else to show my smiling faces.**

**So this is what it is, this Innocence...**

**It's because I don't know. I don't know a philosophy of hate, or any other purity of reality. I just have a philosophy of a little boy's opinion; that the entire world shouldwear _smiling faces..._**

**_But now...in this cold, dark prison...in this atmosphere of ultimate ending...what can that mean...? What are the meanings of my smiling faces? _**

* * *

He was screaming. He was screaming and he wouldn't stop...

The crystals that hovered and glowed faintly, ever so faintly inside the glass dome sparked with a last illumination of farewell then collapsed with a clatter.

Another spasm of searing pain stabbed through the brittle body, causing its owner to writhe in his pitiful, defenseless state. The human form was etched with infection, an infection of another life form, a creature trying to find its home within another physical body. This body was vulnerable, part of a species with poor individual defenses...a human that seemed to be connected with the invading creature's type, a human that spited itself and was about to regret...

"_Red, get back, go away!"_

The words drowned out in the hissing of the beast trying to burst through, be born through its 'host's' skin, engulf his soul with its strangling, scaly coils.

Lance curled up on the ground, the pain having ebbed away, waiting for the invisible claws to return and gouge out his flesh from the inside. The atmosphere trapping him was saturated and humid with the stench of perspiration and urine, overall swimming in a sense of fear and extreme distress. Red did as Lance advised and gradually stepped back, despite the drum-like pounding of worry with each heartbeat flooding to every inch of his body.

The only noises were the harsh, shallow breaths. The sobbing. The heartbeat. The distressed heartbeat. A third heartbeat, powerful enough to burst free from a body.

The screaming.

Its deafening rattle coursed around the area, turning again into the _other creature's _hiss. The waveringly possessed body shuddered and thrashed again, unable to conceal the thing...unable to keep it within boundaries...

Within a body...within a _heart_...

"_Red, close your eyes..."_

He pulled together enough energy to look the boy in the face with frightened, glassy orbs. Red watched the gaping mouth spill a stream of burning crimson as it formed the words to complete its sentence:

"_Cover your eyes...please..."_

Shaking as if he was caught in headlights, Red brought darkness to his vision with the trembling palms of his hands.

The next horrendous explosion of noise tore through Red's ears and he cringed again against the unforgiving earth. Tears streaked his face, running down more freely as each horror broke into his ears.

The screaming bellowed out again. That was engulfed by the hissing, the toneless hissing. That was engulfed by another alien noise, a sickening explosion of living flesh erupting from fissured skin; that flesh that had emerged being just as alien as the sound that it had created...

Seconds after, the powerful patter of ejected blood splattered against Red's body and, with the odour of flesh that the creature had discarded sickening his senses, allowed shadow and unconsciousness to splinter his form.

- End of Part Two -

* * *

(A/N:) o.o ... ... ...

Innocence, Hate, Grace, Sincerity, Mind and Youth are somewhat random. I made them up to suit Finis...

Red's Innocence: I think of it in a certain way that's not quite apparent yet. I know, in some ways...no... (shifty eyes) but that's not what I mean by Innocence, or lack of. (shifty eyes again)

That chamber thing that Red and Lance were in reminds me of the Lost Library from Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation...or, I could have got it from Harry Potter Order, the Department of Mysteries...

'Universal struggle' was in a text in my English exam today. Sorry, they're getting to me.

I know that 'whatever happened to Lance if you get it' is overused. But I'm doing it for a different reason, with different effects and different causes. The fic I took it from was the original Finis. If you ask to read this old crappy fic I will gouge out your eyes with a spork. A SPORK I SAY.  
This new description is gorier, definitely. More criticizing, more violent, more angsty...

Bye, folks. If you have any questions, catapult them at me in the form of a REVIEW, PLEASE! ;P AND, IMPORTANT: I'm stupid for not mentioning this earlier, but none of you mind character death later on, do you?


	10. What to do now I

Chapter 9 part I – "What to do now?"

Disclaimer: Pokémon is not mine.

TIP: I don't know who dies as of yet. They'll be...implied disappearances, most likely. That or the characters will become infinitely inconvenienced.

Phantomness: Yes, it's confusing, but that's because I'm generally a confusing person. Yes, it will (maybe) resolve itself in the end. Ignore word in bracket until it applies.

ShadowRaider: I was touched by your lovely review. Thankyou very much for being a reader. :D

Shadow DarknessDragon: (pats you on the head) :P

I apologise GREATLY for the ridiculously YAWNING space of time since I last updated this fanfic.

Solution – making chapters shorter to cut down time between updates (perhaps).

* * *

As the legendaries stood around those that they had preserved, some members of the group concealed thoughts of disapproval towards the two Elites still standing nearby. Although their minds and souls were of godly quality, there were still fragments of sinful thinking mixed into the concoction that created each legendary pokémon. Whether this was true for each individual depended on their opinions; whichever way, a few of the creatures felt hate towards the humans' existence. 

**_Two Elites..._** Lugia once again broke the silence of thoughts, **_We must find the remaining four, find the reason behind this massacre..._**

"It's almost describable as a civil war," Kamon growled to himself. A pure blue paw padded down into the grass beside him.

**_What about the Mother Earth? She would not consider it to be such a thing,_ **Suicune spoke;**_ All life she saw was separated and scattered. We had to follow her actions towards what she saw as fairness, and what we may have seen as a massacre._**

"But you believed in her choice."

**_Yes. We did. But deity is not always, as we discovered in her case, perfection. We may have been as foolish as she may have been, perhaps making a fatal error. But though we cannot find ultimate reason behind this, we are able to find what – potentially - her errors were. Ho-oh...did tell you about his theory of sensing something that should have perished?_**

Kamon nodded silently. Suicune trotted in front of him, leading its brothers to face the boy. **_Come, it is our job to find your friends. Then we may make a discovery towards the concern we feel._**

From behind his fractured mask and dully coloured wisps of wind-captured hair a little further away, Will watched his sidekick escape towards the duty he had in the east. The representative of Mind turned back to face those about him in the circle that legendaries and Elite now formed. Through telepathic understanding of their task, each of the beings bowed their heads and prepared to make the connection; Will lightly touching the top of Latios and Latias' heads on either side of him to form his part of the link.

_There are impurities, sins within this remaining child of the Earth mother. And his brother, with one last ounce of pride and revenge, plunged them deep into the conquering sibling's soul, passing them along, forcing them to live on._

_But why...how could it be explained?_

_Such a sin is surely unexplainable through the salvaged purities of Innocence, Hate, Grace, Sincerity, Mind and Youth...?_

* * *

An Absol wandered back across dusty stretches of shattered earth, scanning the area of now settled clamor for a spot to rest. That was all that the creature was willing to do for the time being; rest. He had spent the last raging inferno of a mission predicting the events, and then tearing across the all-of-a-sudden explosion of Sootopolis, keeping every soul that was meant to live on in order. He had – just as the Great Mother would – not felt long lasting sympathy for any individual losses within the pokémon; he had merely done the job been assigned. He settled down against a half caved-in rock face - in relief that the world-shattering disaster was over...since he really _did_ need to banish his fatigue. 

Lunatra watched the Absol's dangerous blood-bright irises disappear beneath pure white eyelids, amazed at its coolness towards the situation. Slightly disgusted by this 'emotional wasteland' that now lay nearby, the Umbreon continued to pad over rubble, charred remains and through blasts of still-unfurling smoke to reach the water's edge again. The gnarled terrain appeared to be torturing him, its teeth pinching him on a considerably longer trek than before the destruction. Finally he too collapsed to the very recently carved out ground.

The Absol cracked an eye open to peer at the life-form from where he lay before continuing to doze.

A paw flicked at the water, churning up silt; the cloud-like dust still hovering in the air from when Lunatra had thrown himself to the floor. He inhaled this dust, the result of the great change that had occurred so recently; he exhaled it. His long, sensitive ears twitched at the sound of loose rocks clattering to the ground. He tasted the murky water, dirtied with the oblivious, foolish, yet almost _innocent_ sin that one ultimate being they all worshipped had committed. Despite this, as the swirling silt in the water took its time to clear, that reflection of an Umbreon appeared again. That twisted reflection of a reflection.

No matter how much the world was crushed, that mirror would never shatter. Never. It was an eternal reflection.

A beam of sunlight broke through a peachy-coloured yet sandy cloud high above; breathing gently, shedding light over the disturbed ground. Anger rattled through Lunatra's insides; his belief was, now that he had viewed the reality of what he and many others had idiotically wished for, that this world had no right to receive the beauty of the sun's light. It did not deserve to be inhabited by beings that cared about their surroundings any more. It did not deserve to thrive with peace and silence...just like this being, shown in this double reflection, did not deserve to live on, in his opinion. In his opinion...he was some kind of human invention.

Maybe other survivors would awaken, feel the way that he was feeling, foolish for following a merely destructive and emotionless force? _Thing?_

The Absol, just as the Earth was now, was motionless, drenched in slumber. Swiping at the water once again, Lunatra turned tail and ran from the mirror, the eternal reflection, back to the safety of the cave.

Another pokémon watched him go. Its naturally crimson eyes were enhanced with the colour after seeing the results of what had happened. This is what she had promised? This? A wasteland...then again, what had they expected? Perhaps she had just believed her child to be stronger?

The Sneasel's eyes turned away from the sulking figure, his gaze colliding with the ground and a small twig. It was that twig; snapped in two and sitting just there where he had dropped it, some hours before. His stomach lurched at its presence for some reason. The fact that it was still here, something as brittle and insignificant as a _twig_ after such a catastrophic event had wiped out a _race_...

It made him feel sick.

The Ninetales and Crawdaunt that he had been speaking with before lay nearby, still huddled in sleep. He was better natured than to wake them and allow their eyes to fall upon the mess beyond the Cave of Origin. Instead he sighed and turned towards the yawning depths of the shelter before hurling the twig into shadows.

_What is this...?_ His echoing hiss reverberated harshly.

_Eternal reflection...some kind of...human invention..._

"What do we do...now...?"

Wallace sank to his knees, digging his palms against the pointed rocks, forcing blood away from where pressure was applied. Steven stood beside him, his despair also beginning to plummet over the precipice after his partner's. It had taken them long enough to bash and bruise themselves on the way out of the rubble beneath the Cave of Origin. Even though they were now physically tattered, both the Hoenn Elites stood tall and looked out over the world.

And their hearts sank like lead, merging into a pitch-blackness.

"She was serious."

Absol cracked open an eye again to view the alien figures in the distance. The sight hit him hard; he was reminded of something that was expected to perish away...

Rising shakily to his feet, the pokémon trotted off again towards the low ridge where the invading humans stood. He glared at them as he went, hissing hatred in his emotionless mind whilst other pokémon's eyes swam in pity, an empathy towards the lost, alone humans evident in their depths.

The Absol stalked directly towards its target. Anger building. Hate. Desire for elimination. Emotions that it knew – but didn't care that – _she _put there. She was just who he had known and followed since the beginning and as he was a pokémon...not a human, _not_ a human...he did not question it.

Steven froze, motionless, catching sight of the creature that had decided to confront them. The two of them, as they had been masters, knew that one confronting pokémon soon meant many.

"You want us to leave," he croaked on a monotone, scathingly.

The beast did nothing. It remained in its rigid stance. It remained with its incinerating crimson glare. It did not snarl, or take violent action. It just did absolutely nothing.

And that was the most dreadful thing.

* * *

Suicune's feet easily carried it across the waves, whilst its siblings followed. Kamon clung to its fur and watched Sootopolis zoom closer – with a certain amount of dread. Hopefully, Wallace and Steven were still there. 

Kamon astonished himself with the fact that he cared.

Heck, he was even worried about _Will._ It hadn't taken him long to realise that he hated his Elite partner, so this was...some kind of instinct that had kicked in?

Part of being that 'Chosen Elite', that 'Humanity's Purity Treasure' shit? Probably...it was probably that force that had taken over from the start of the Elite business, locking him in a cube, forcing him to care about what he had dedicated himself to. _Not that cube again...I want out of this, damn it..._

"No..." he whispered to himself with a shaky voice, "I've got to remember who I'm doing this for."

But what was the point of that any more, even? They have what they want: their freedom. They got rid of human beings, and _no matter how Elite you are, Kamon, you're still human too...they'd hate you now, no matter what you did for them, they'd hate you, they'd hate you..._

Suicune let out a deafening bellow as they finally charged into the demolished basin. Kamon only just took in what they were facing once they were in the centre of it; it seemed as though the pokémon had gone out of control and were creating a kind of battle scene.

**_It's your companions,_** the lightening dog suddenly appeared and informed Kamon, **_The pokémon don't seem to know of the Elites._**

"Wh-what can I do?" Kamon asked, suddenly feeling helpless and angering himself. Wallace and Steven were nowhere to be seen, and the pokémon were likely to attack him as well...

_They'd hate you, they'd hate you, they'd hate you..._

* * *

One word: Shit. 

Does this fanfic make sense any more?  
Reassure or flame me, whichever you think suits.  
Thank you.


End file.
